The Collected Stories of Frank Herbert (108 page)

Why should a little girl be fascinated by bugs?
Margaret asked herself.
It's not natural
. She said: “How'd you get the cobweb in your hair?”

“Oh, succotash!” Rita put a hand to her hair, rubbed away the offending web.

“How?” repeated Margaret.

“Mother! If one is to acquire knowledge of the insect world, one inevitably encounters such things! I am just dismayed that I tore the web.”

“Well, I'm dismayed that you're filthy dirty. Go upstairs and wash so you'll look presentable when we get the call through to your father.”

Rita turned away.

“And weigh yourself,” called Margaret. “I have to turn in our family's weekly weight aggregate tomorrow.”

Rita skipped out of the room.

Margaret felt certain she had heard a muttered “parents!” The sound of the child's footsteps diminished up the stairs. A door slammed on the second floor. Presently, Rita clattered back down the stairs. She ran into the kitchen. “Mother, you…”

“You haven't had time to get clean.” Margaret spoke without turning.

“It's David,” said Rita. “He looks peculiar and he says he doesn't want any supper.”

Margaret turned from the sink, her features set to hide the gripping of fear. She knew from experience that Rita's “peculiar” could be anything … literally anything.

“How do you mean
peculiar,
dear?”

“He's so pale. He looks like he doesn't have any blood.”

For some reason, this brought to Margaret's mind a memory picture of David at the age of three—a still figure in a hospital bed, flesh-colored feeding tube protruding from his nose, and his skin as pale as death with his breathing so quiet it was difficult to detect the chest movements.

She dried her hands on a dishtowel. “Let's go have a look. He's probably just tired.”

David was stretched out on his bed, one arm thrown across his eyes. The shades were drawn and the room was in semi-darkness. It took a moment for Margaret's eyes to adjust to the gloom, and she thought:
Do the blind seek darkness because it gives them the advantage over those with sight?
She crossed to the bedside. The boy was a small, dark-haired figure—his father's coloring. The chin was narrow and the mouth a firm line like his grandfather Hatchell's. Right now he looked thin and defenseless … and Rita was right: terribly pale.

Margaret adopted her best hospital manner, lifted David's arm from his face, took his pulse.

“Don't you feel well, Davey?” she asked.

“I wish you wouldn't call me that,” he said. “That's a baby name.” His narrow features were set, sullen.

She took a short, quick breath. “Sorry. I forgot. Rita says you don't want any supper.”

Rita came in from the hallway. “He looks positively infirm, mother.”

“Does she have to keep pestering me?” demanded David.

“I thought I heard the phone chime,” said Margaret. “Will you go check, Rita?”

“You're being offensively obvious,” said Rita. “If you don't want me in here, just say so.” She turned, walked slowly out of the room.

“Do you hurt someplace, David?” asked Margaret.

“I just feel tired,” he muttered. “Why can't you leave me alone?”

Margaret stared down at him—caught as she had been so many times by his resemblance to his grandfather Hatchell. It was a resemblance made uncanny when the boy sat down at the piano: that same intense vibrancy … the same musical genius that had made Hatchell a name to fill concert halls. And she thought:
Perhaps it's because the Steinway belonged to his grandfather that he feels so badly about parting with it. The piano's a symbol of the talent he inherited.

She patted her son's hand, sat down beside him on the bed. “Is something troubling you, David?”

His features contorted, and he whirled away from her. “Go away!” He muttered, “Just leave me alone!”

Margaret sighed, felt inadequate. She wished desperately that Walter were not tied to the work at the launching site. She felt a deep need of her husband at this moment. Another sigh escaped her. She knew what she had to do. The rules for colonists were explicit: any symptoms at all—even superficial ones—were to get a doctor's attention. She gave David's hand a final pat, went downstairs to the hall phone, called Dr. Mowery, the medic cleared for colonists in the Seattle area. He said he'd be out in about an hour.

Rita came in as Margaret was completing the call, asked: “Is David going to die?”

All the tenseness and aggravation of the day came out in Margaret's reply: “Don't be such a beastly little fool!”

Immediately, she was sorry. She stopped, gathered Rita to her, crooned apologies.

“It's all right, mother,” Rita said. “I realize you're overwrought.”

Filled with contriteness, Margaret went into the kitchen, prepared her daughter's favorite food: tuna-fish sandwiches and chocolate milkshakes.

I'm getting too jumpy,
thought Margaret.
David's not really sick. It's the hot weather we've had lately and all this tension of getting ready to go.
She took a sandwich and milkshake up to the boy, but he still refused to eat. And there was such a pallid sense of defeat about him. A story about someone who had died merely because he gave up the will to live entered her mind and refused to be shaken.

She made her way back down to the kitchen, dabbled at the work there until the call to Walter went through. Her husband's craggy features and deep voice brought the calmness she had been seeking all day.

“I miss you so much, darling,” she said.

“It won't be much longer,” he said. He smiled, leaned to one side, exposing the impersonal wall of a pay booth behind him. He looked tired. “How's my family?”

She told him about David, saw the worry creep into his eyes. “Is the doctor there yet?” he asked.

“He's late. He should've been here by six and it's half past.”

“Probably busy as a bird dog,” he said. “It doesn't really sound as though David's actually sick. Just upset more likely … the excitement of leaving. Call me as soon as the doctor tells you what's wrong.”

“I will. I think he's just upset over leaving your father's piano behind.”

“David knows it's not that we want to leave these things.” A grin brightened his features. “Lord! Imagine taking that thing on the ship! Dr. Charlesworthy would flip!”

She smiled. “Why don't you suggest it?”

“You're trying to get me in trouble with the old man!”

“How're things going, dear?” she asked.

His face sobered. He sighed. “I had to talk to poor Smythe's widow today. She came out to pick up his things. It was rather trying. The old man was afraid she might still want to come along … but no…” He shook his head.

“Do you have his replacement yet?”

“Yes. Young fellow from Lebanon. Name's Teryk. His wife's a cute little thing.” Walter looked past her at the kitchen. “Looks like you're getting things in order. Decided yet what you're taking?”

“Some of the things. I wish I could make decisions like you do. I've definitely decided to take mother's Spode china cups and saucers and the sterling silver … for Rita when she gets married … and the Utrillo your father bought in Lisbon … and I've weeded my jewelry down to about two pounds of basics … and I'm not going to worry about cosmetics since you say we can make our own when we…”

Rita ran into the kitchen, pushed in beside Margaret. “Hello, father.”

“Hi, punkin head. What've you been up to?”

“I've been cataloging my insect collection and filling it out. Mother's going to help me film the glassed-in specimens as soon as I'm ready. They're so
heavy!
”

“How'd you wangle her agreement to get that close to your bugs?”

“Father! They're not bugs; they're entomological specimens.”

“They're bugs to your mother, honey. Now, if…”

“Father! There's one other thing. I told Raul—he's the new boy down the block—I told him today about those hawklike insects on Ritelle that…”

“They're not insects, honey; they're adapted amphibians.”

She frowned. “But Spencer's report distinctly says that they're chitinous and they…”

“Whoa down! You should've read the technical report, the one I showed you when I was home last month. These critters have a copper-base metabolism, and they're closely allied to a common fish on the planet.”

“Oh … Do you think I'd better branch out into marine biology?”

“One thing at a time, honey. Now…”

“Have we set the departure date yet, father? I can hardly wait to get to work there.”

“It's not definite yet, honey. But we should know any day. Now, let me talk to your mother.”

Rita pulled back.

Walter smiled at his wife. “What're we raising there?”

“I wish I knew.”

“Look … don't worry about David. It's been nine years since … since he recovered from that virus. All the tests show that he was completely cured.”

And she thought:
Yes … cured—except for the little detail of no optic nerves.
She forced a smile. “I know you're probably right. It'll turn out to be something simple … and we'll laugh about this when…” The front doorbell chimed. “That's probably the doctor now.”

“Call me when you find out,” said Walter.

Margaret heard Rita's footsteps running toward the door.

“I'll sign off, sweet,” she said. She blew a kiss to her husband. “I love you.”

Walter held up two fingers in a victory sign, winked. “Same here. Chin up.”

They broke the connection.

Dr. Mowery was a gray-haired, flint-faced bustler—addicted to the nodding head and the knowing (but unintelligible) murmur. One big hand held a gray instrument bag. He had a pat on the head for Rita, a firm handshake for Margaret, and he insisted on seeing David alone.

“Mothers just clutter up the atmosphere for a doctor,” he said, and he winked to take the sting from his words.

Margaret sent Rita to her room, waited in the upstairs hall. There were 106 flower panels on the wallpaper between the door to David's room and the corner of the hall. She was moving on to count the rungs in the balustrade when the doctor emerged from David's room. He closed the door softly behind him, nodding to himself.

She waited.

“Mmmmmm-hmmmmm,” said Dr. Mowery. He cleared his throat.

“It is anything serious?” asked Margaret.

“Not sure.” He walked to the head of the stairs. “How long's the boy been acting like that … listless and upset?”

Margaret swallowed a lump in her throat. “He's been acting differently ever since they delivered the electronic piano … the one that's going to substitute for his grandfather's Steinway. Is that what you mean?”

“Differently?”

“Rebellious, short-tempered … wanting to be alone.”

“I suppose there's not the remotest possibility of his taking the big piano,” said the doctor.

“Oh, my goodness … it must weigh all of a thousand pounds,” said Margaret. “The electronic instrument is only twenty-one pounds.” She cleared her throat. “It is worry about the piano, doctor?”

“Possibly.” Dr. Mowery nodded, took the first step down the stairs. “It doesn't appear to be anything organic that my instruments can find. I'm going to have Dr. Linquist and some others look in on David tonight. Dr. Linquist is our chief psychiatrist. Meanwhile, I'd try to get the boy to eat something.”

She crossed to Dr. Mowery's side at the head of the stairs. “I'm a nurse,” she said. “You can tell me if it's something serious that…”

He shifted his bag to his right hand, patted her arm. “Now don't you worry, my dear. The colonization group is fortunate to have a musical genius in its roster. We're not going to let anything happen to him.”

Dr. Linquist had the round face and cynical eyes of a fallen cherub. His voice surged out of him in waves that flowed over the listener and towed him under. The psychiatrist and colleagues were with David until almost ten
P.M.
. Then Dr. Linquist dismissed the others, came down to the music room where Margaret was waiting. He sat on the piano bench, hands gripping the lip of wood beside him.

Margaret occupied her wing-back chair—the one piece of furniture she knew she would miss more than any other thing in the house. Long usage had worn contours in the chair that exactly complemented her, and its rough fabric upholstery held the soothing texture of familiarity.

The night outside the screened windows carried a sonorous sawing of crickets.

“We can say definitely that it's a fixation about this piano,” said Linquist. He slapped his palms onto his knees. “Have you ever thought of leaving the boy behind?”

“Doctor!”

“Thought I'd ask.”

“Is it
that
serious with Davey?” she asked. “I mean, after all … we're all of us going to miss things.” She rubbed the chair arm. “But good heavens, we…”

“I'm not much of a musician,” said Linquist. “I'm told by the critics, though, that your boy already has concert stature … that he's being deliberately held back now to avoid piling confusion on confusion … I mean with your leaving so soon and all.” The psychiatrist tugged at his lower lip. “You realize, of course, that your boy worships the memory of his grandfather?”

“He's seen all the old stereos, listened to all the tapes,” said Margaret. “He was only four when grandfather died, but David remembers everything they ever did together. It was…” She shrugged.

“David has identified his inherited talent with his inherited piano,” said Linquist. “He…”