The Tomorrow File (17 page)

She sat there, hunched over on the hassock, chin cupped in palms.

“You’re not going to do it, are you?” she asked quietly.

“I don’t
want
to do it!” I cried. “If I don’t, my career is over. But that’s the least of my worries. There’s always the R&R Hospice ‘for psychiatric observation for reasons of public security.’ They’ll never let me walk away from this. Not knowing what I know.”

She nodded, reached forward, took my hands in hers.

“We’ll work it out,” she whispered. “Somehow.”

“Don’t talk to your father, for God’s sake,” I said roughly. “That’s the last thing in the world I need—the Director of Bliss learning I had mentioned this to anyone.”

“No,” she said. “No, I won’t talk to my father.”

She rose and smiled down at me. A sad, understanding, sympathetic smile. The last smile Harris had seen before he began clawing at his chest?

“Another drink?” she asked.

“No, thanks. I’m all knotted up. It won’t help.”

She nodded, took my empty glass, went into the kitchen, then into the bedroom. I waited, wondering what she was doing. Then she came to the bedroom door and stood there for a moment, erect, arms down at her sides, palms turned forward. She was naked. She looked like an anatomy chart. I rose, turned off the lamp, moved to her.

Whatever control she possessed, and she had displayed a great deal, fell away from her in bed. The pleasant self-assurance disappeared, and something raw took its place. If she was not a practised user, she was an ardent student. I could understand Harris’ infatuation. There was nothing she would not do.

The body was overwhelming, slightly tumescent, a fever to her flesh. She had an almost demoniacal strength, thrashing, bucking, flailing. And uttering animal cries. Her odor was dark, fern-rot and bog. I know it may scan ridiculous, but I was never certain she was conscious of my presence. Surrendered to a paroxysm of sensuality, she was simply lost and gone, rutting her last minute on earth and howling with delight.

Long afterward, her great breasts puddled out, nipples bleary, soft thighs spread, she looked at me with dazed eyes, coming back slowly from wherever she had been. I may have hated her then.

Smelling of her, I showered quickly and dressed. I bent over the bed to kiss her goodnight. A strong arm curled around my neck, pulled me close.

“Yes,” she whispered.

In the lobby, I looked at the mailbox of 2-B, the apartment directly below hers. Dr. and Mrs. Henry L. Hammond. I knew him—or knew of him.

I circled the block slowly. Finally, on Ninetieth Street between West End Avenue and the river, I found the Kleen-Eeez Laundry van. It appeared deserted. I rapped on the side. A small circular flap, concealed in the lettering, slid aside. An eye stared at me. The flap closed. A moment later the van’s rear door was opened. Leon Mansfield motioned to me.

I climbed in and closed the door behind me. The interior was dimly lighted with a low-wattage red bulb. It was fitted out with electronic equipment: tape recorders, shortwave radio transmitters and receivers, locator* tape splicer, etc. There was a canvas cot with a filthy blanket. Mansfield was seated at a makeshift desk, earphones clamped to his elongated skull. He turned one of the earphones around and waved me close.

I moved next to him, breathing through my mouth. I had had enough of other objects’ odors for one day. I pressed my ear to the turned pad.

Man’s voice: “We’ll discuss it tomorrow.”

Lydia: “Yes, Henry. As long as you got it all.”

Henry: “We did indeed. Perfectly.”

Lydia: “He’s very troubled.”

Henry: “We’ll discuss it tomorrow. Get a good night’s sleep.” Lydia: “Give my best to Alice. Good night.”

Henry: “Good night.”

Click. The tape stopped.

Leon Mansfield removed his earphones. He rewound the tape, stopped the machine, removed the reel. He fitted a fresh reel on the spindle, threaded it through. He handed me the reel he had removed and two more.

“This is what I have so far,” he said tonelessly.

I was waiting to hear him comment about those bedroom sounds he had picked up, but he said nothing. I climbed out of the back door of the van, carrying the reels.

“Thank you,” I said.

“A pleasure,” he said.

On the morning following my dinner with Lydia Ann Ferguson, I flashed DIVSEC (Division of Security & Intelligence) and requested a complete profile on Dr. Henry L. Hammond from the National Data Bank. I was certain I’d hear from Assistant Deputy Director Burton P. Klein within the hour, demanding to know the reason for my request. I underestimated the em. He came storming into my office thirty minutes later, banging the door behind him.

“Come on in, Burton,” I said genially.

My irony was wasted.

“What the hell is this about Dr. Hammond?” he shouted.

I looked at him critically.

“Calm, Burton, calm,” I said. “You want me to quote correlative statistics on hypertension and mortality? Now sit down and relax. I don’t like that high color in your face.”

It worked. He threw himself into the plastivas sling at my deskside, breathing heavily, glaring at me, but gradually quieting.

He was a bear of an em, carrying an overweight torso on slender legs. He was ugly. Ungraceful. His voice was too loud, his manner boisterous, his personal habits disgusting. (He picked his nose, rolled the detached matter between thumb and forefinger, flicked it away.)

But he could no more dissimulate than he could play a toccata on a harpsichord. I took no profit from him, but I admired his openness. He was what he was: take it or leave it.

“Dr. Henry L. Hammond,” I said. “Yes, I requested a profile. I’m thinking of asking him to serve on a consultant basis.”

“What the hell for?”

“Burton, it’s just routine,” I said softly. “Hyman Lewisohn has leukemia. You know that. Lewisohn’s survival is my concern. He’s not responding to drugs. So I’ve drawn up a contingency plan if his condition continues to deteriorate. One step in that plan is parabiosis. Hammond is an expert in parabiosis. That’s all there is to it.”

“What’s parabiosis?” he demanded.

At least he made no attempt to disguise his ignorance.

“Parabiosis is a surgical process by which two objects of the same species are linked physiologically. Hopefully for a short time. One object is healthy, one diseased.. By linking their blood vessels, the healthy one takes over, or assists, the life processes of the diseased object. It has worked many times in renal failure. That pertains to kidney malfunctions. And it has worked, experimentally, with leukemic patients. That’s why I want Dr. Hammond. If parabiosis becomes necessary in Lewisohn’s case.”

In his blunt manner, he went directly to the essence of the problem.

“Where do you get the healthy object to connect him to?” he asked.

“Volunteers.” I shrugged. “Prisoners condemned to capital punishment. Others. We can work it out.”

“Do you know what you’re doing?” he asked finally.

I was startled. I thought at first he was questioning my professional competence. Then I saw, from his bemused manner, that it , had been a rhetorical question. What the hell, he wanted to know, was going on?

I had seen that same manner in, and heard the same question from many other objects, some much more intelligent than Burton Klein. It sprang from an inability to accept change. It was a psychological condition quite similar to shock. Things were moving so fast, society evolving so rapidly, some objects simply could not cope. Mutation followed mutation so swiftly that after a while catalepsy was the only means of survival.

“Burton,” I said gently, “you’ve been serving too hard.” “Yes, I have,” he agreed. He scrubbed his face with his palms. “Things have been piling up. These terrorist attacks. I don’t know where to start. And—”

“And?” I prompted when he paused.

“And other things,” he muttered. *‘I don’t know whom to trust anymore.”

“Sleeping well?” I asked him.

“Somnorifics.”

“How often?”

“Every night.”

“That’s not so good. Want to check in? Here or at a Hospice? We’ll give you a workup.”

“No,” he said decisively. “Not now. My annual comes up in September. I can wait till then.”

He got up heavily, started for the door. Then he turned. “Listen,” he said. “You talk to Angela Berri more than I do.” It wasn’t a question. I didn’t answer.

“You should know—”

But then he stopped, turned around again, and marched out, leaving my door open. I stared after him.

We met in my apartment about 1800. Angela Berri told us the program to accuratize the Satrat was proceeding on schedule. No problems. She and I looked to Paul Bumford.

Paul had been serving long hours; it showed. His weight was down. His naturally fair skin had an unhealthy pallor. There were dark rings under his eyes. With his vanity, I knew that must gall him. He had applied pancake makeup, but the shadows were still discernible.

“Mary Bergstrom and I have been using the King Mk. IV computer in A Lab,” he reported. “I thought it best not to take the chance of alerting Phoebe Huntzinger to what we were doing.” “Good,” Angela said.

“But the King is limited,” Paul went on. “Especially in storage. Anyway, we broke down and coded the raw data on terrorist

attacks. Nationwide. Only on the mainland. Incidents in outlying states are normal. We programmed for dates and times, types of attack, number of objects believed involved, types of installations hit, results, duration of attacks, methods of approach and escape, types of sabotage, and so forth.”

“And?” Angela demanded.

“These are preliminary printouts,” Paul said. “But I think they’ll hold up. It may be a nationwide conspiracy, directed from a central command. I can’t say definitely. I’d guess yes. Operations appear to be organized by Geo-Political Areas. Each GPA exhibits distinct characteristics. In GPA-6, for instance, bombings predominate. In GPA-3, it’s kidnappings. Times of attack and numbers of objects involved convince me the whole is organized, structurally, along GPA lines.”

“Any uniformities?” I asked.

“Mostly procreation and genetic research facilities, in all GPA’s. Most significant: Attacks on procreation and genetic research facilities are 82.3 percent sabotage. That indicates interior collusion. Turning a thermostat down a few degrees. Enough to destroy a culture. Poisoning rats’ meal. To stop a cancer-sensitive strain it’s taken thirty years to breed. In our Denver Field Office labs, a hundred aborted fetuses were uncovered over a weekend. ” “Jesus,” Angela breathed.

I tried to control my anger. What in God’s name did they think they were doing?

“Those are my gross conclusions to date,” Paul finished. “It’s big. It’s serious. No hint of who may be behind it. No suggestion of foreign influence. Obviously a great number of objects, including SATSEC personnel, are participating. Questions?”

“Any captures?” I asked. “Defectors? Informers?”

“None.”

“Any love stolen?” Angela asked.

“Now that’s interesting,” Paul said. “The answer is yes. Terrorism against banks was in the usual pattern. Large sums were taken. But I think the bank hits were a diversion.”

“Nice diversion,” I said. “Dual purpose. Muddy the waters and finance the whole operation. Good brain there.”

“Paul, you’ve done excellent service,” Angela said.

He straightened and brightened.

“Another two days,” he said. “Then we’ll be finished. What’s next?”

“Me,” I said. “I’m next. These are the tapes supplied by Leon Mansfield. Recorded yesterday. He told me Lydia Ferguson’s apartment was already being shared before he got in. The bug leads to the apartment below hers. Occupied by Dr. and Mrs. Henry L. Hammond.”

Angela Berri showed no reaction when I spoke the name. I was watching for it.

“So what you hear, ’ ’ I went on, ‘ ‘has already been shared by her rulers. I knew it when I spoke. Here we go. . . .”

I started the machine. Angela and Paul leaned forward, hands clasped, heads down. During Lydia’s animal cries in the bedroom, I watched them closely. Neither reacted. They listened intently, right up to Henry’s last line. I switched off the machine.

Then Paul raised his head, looked at me admiringly.

“How did you ever think of that African idea?” he asked. “Using an anemic stimulator on a rebel tribe?”

“It just occurred to me. I thought it was exactly the type of activity a dissident group would be looking for. Something to discredit the US in the United Nations.”

“Genius,” Paul enthused. “Genius!”

Angela Berri was silent.

“Who is Dr. Henry L. Hammond?” Paul asked.

‘ ‘I know him. I never met him personally, but I heard him address a meeting of the American Association' for the Advancement of Science in 1993. On symbiosis. A brilliant paper. Then he disappeared, for years. This afternoon I ran a DIVSEC profile on him.”

Then Angela came alive.

“DIVSEC?” she said sharply. “Did Klein question it?”

“Of course.” I nodded. “But I soothed him. I told him I wanted Hammond as a consultant because I was considering symbiosis for the treatment of Lewisohn. Which I am.”

She started to speak, then thought better of it.

“Hammond’s profile was interesting,” I went on. “He headed a team at CIT that did the research on symbiosis. More failures than successes on human objects, but definite progress. Six months after he delivered the paper at the Triple-A S, he resigned, went to Japan, and served in a Zen Buddhist monastery for two years. How does that jerk you? Then he returned, married his former secretary, and took service at CCNY teaching a very primary course in something called Human Dynamics. As far as I can discover, it’s a lot of kaka.

Hammond and his wife live in the apartment directly below Lydia Ferguson’s. Alice Hammond rules a government daycare center on Broadway and Seventy-third Street. She’s a PS-7. About six months ago they applied for and were granted a procreation license. Ef. Their political involvement, to date, has been minimal. Both are registered Independents. She belongs only to several scientific societies.”