Orbit 7 - [Anthology] Read online

  Martie made a movement toward Wymann, who stepped behind his desk warily. Conant and Fischer were watching him very closely. He sank back down in the chair, covering his face. Later, he thought. Not now. Find out what you can now. Try to keep calm.

  “Why did you tell me any of this?” he asked after a moment. “With Boyle gone my job is gone. I couldn’t have hurt you.”

  “We don’t want you to light that fuse. You’re a scientist. You can divorce your emotions from your reason and grasp the implications. But aside from that, your baby, Martie. We want to save the baby. Julia has tried and tried to find a book on obstetrics, hasn’t she? Has she been successful?”

  Martie shook his head. The book. He had meant to ask about one at Harvard, and he’d forgotten. “The baby. You think it will be able to ... The other two? Are they both . . . ?”

  “The only concern we have now is for the successful delivery of the child that your wife is carrying. We suspect that it will be one of us. And we need it. That forty percent I mentioned runs through the population, young and old. Over forty, give or take a year or two, they can’t stand the treatments. We don’t know exactly why yet, but we will eventually. We just know that they die. So that brings us down to roughly twenty-five percent of the present population. We need the babies. We need a new generation of people who won’t be afraid of death from the day they first grasp the meaning of the word. We don’t know what they will be, how it will change them, but we need them.”

  “And if it isn’t able to take the RNA?”

  “Martie, we abort a pregnancy when it is known that the mother had German measles, or if there is a high probability of idiocy. You know that. Unfortunately, our technique for testing the foetus is too imperfect to be certain, and we have to permit the pregnancy to come to term. But that’s the only difference. It would still be a therapeutic abortion.”

  Martie and Julia lay side by side, not touching, each wakeful, aware that the other was awake, pretending sleep. Julia had dried tears on her cheeks. Neither of them had moved for almost an hour. “But goddam it, which one is Cro-Magnon and which Neanderthal?” Martie said, and sat upright.

  Julia sat up too. “What?”

  “Nothing. I’m sorry. Go back to sleep, honey. I’m getting up for a while.”

  Julia swung her legs off the bed. “Can we talk now, Martie? Will you talk to me about it now?”

  Martie muttered a curse and left the room.

  This was part of the plan, he knew. Drive them apart first, make it easier for him to join them later. He sat down in the kitchen with a glass half filled with bourbon and a dash of water.

  “Martie? Are you all right?” Julia stood in the doorway. She was barely showing her pregnancy now, a small bulge was all. He turned away. She sat down opposite him. “Martie? Won’t you tell me?”

  “Christ, Julia, will you shove off! Get off my back for a while?”

  She touched his arm. “Martie, they offered you the treatment, didn’t they? They think you could take it. Are you going to?”

  He jerked out of the chair, knocking it over, knocking his glass over. “What are you talking about?”

  “That was the crudest thing they could have done right now, wasn’t it? After I’m gone, it would have been easier, but now . . .”

  “Julia, cut it out. You’re talking nonsense. . . .”

  “I’ll die this time, won’t I? Isn’t that what they’re planning? Did they tell you that you could have the babies if you want them? Was that part of it too?”

  “Has someone been here?” Martie grabbed her arm and pulled her from the chair.

  She shook her head.

  He stared at her for a long time, and suddenly he yanked her against him hard. “I must be out of my mind. I believed them. Julia, we’re getting out of here, now. Tomorrow.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know. Somewhere. Anywhere. I don’t know.”

  “Martie, we have to stop running. There are physical limits to how much I can run now. But besides that, there’s really no place to run to. It’s the same everywhere. You haven’t found anyone who will listen to you. One check with your personal data file and that’s it. We may never know what they put on your record, but it’s enough to make every official pat you on the head and say, ‘Don’t worry, Dr. S. We’ll take care of it.’ We can’t get out of the country, passport requests turned down for medical reasons. But even if we could . . . more of the same.”

  Julia was pale, with circles under her eyes. It was early in November, cold in Chicago, where the apartment overlooked Lake Michigan. A flurry of powdery snow blew in a whirlwind across the street.

  Martie nodded. “They’ve covered everything, haven’t they? Special maternity hospitals! For the safety and protection of the mother and child. To keep them from the filthy conditions that exist in most hospitals now. Keep them safe from pneumonia, flu, staph. . . . Oh, Christ!” He leaned his head against the glass and watched the dry dustlike snow.

  “Martie ...”

  “Damn. I’m out of cigarettes, honey. I’ll just run out and get some.”

  “Okay. Fine.”

  “Want anything?”

  “No. Nothing.” She watched him pull on his coat and leave, then stood at the window and watched until he emerged from the building and started to walk down the street. The baby kicked and she put her hand over her stomach. “It’s all right, little one. It’s all right.”

  Martie was only a speck among specks standing at the corner, waiting for the light to turn. She could no longer pick out his figure from those around him. “Martie,” she whispered. Then she turned away from the window and sat down. She closed her eyes for a moment. They wanted her baby, this baby, not just another child who would become immortal. They were too aware of the population curve that rises slowly, slowly, then with abandon becomes an exponential curve. No, not just a child, but her particular child. She had to remember that always. The child would be safe. They wouldn’t let it be harmed. But they wouldn’t let her have it, and they knew that this time she wouldn’t give it up. So she’d have to die. The child couldn’t be tainted with her knowledge of death. Of course, if it too was unable to tolerate the RNA, there was no real problem. Mother and child. Too bad. No cures for ... whatever they’d say killed them. Or would they keep her, let her try again? She shook her head. They wouldn’t. By then Martie would be one of them, or dead. This was the last child for her.

  “So what can I do?” she asked.

  Her hands opened and closed convulsively. She shut her eyes hard. “What?” she whispered desperately. “What?”

  She worked on the red sandstone on the ground floor of the barn. It was too big to get up to her studio, so she’d had her tools, bench, table, everything brought down. It was drafty, but she wore heavy wool slacks and a tentlike top, and was warm.

  She whistled tunelessly as she worked. . . .

  Julia stood up too fast, then clutched the chair for support. Have to remember, she told herself severely. Work. She had to go to work. She picked up her sketch pad, put it down again. Red sandstone, 10x10x8. And red quartzite, 4x3x2. She called her supplier on Long Island.

  “Funny, Mrs. Sayre. Just got some in,” he said. “Haven’t had sandstone for ... oh, years, I guess.”

  “Can you have it delivered tomorrow?”

  “Mrs. Sayre, everyone who’s ever touched rock is working. Had to put on an extra man. Still can’t keep up.”

  “I know. And the painters, and composers, and poets . . .” They settled for the day after her arrival home.

  She reserved seats on the six P.M. flight to New York, asked for their hotel bill within the hour, and started to pack. She paused once, a puzzled frown on her forehead. Every one of her friends in the arts was working furiously. They either didn’t know or didn’t care about the disastrous epidemics, the travel bans, any of it.

  Martie walked slowly, his head bowed. He kept thinking of the bridge that he had stood on for an hour, watching f
ilthy water move sluggishly with bits and pieces of junk floating on the surface: a piece of orange, a plastic bag, a child’s doll with both arms gone, one eye gone. The doll had swirled in a circle for several minutes, caught in a branch, then moved on out of sight. Of no use to anyone, unwanted, unloved now. Imperfect, cast away.

  The wind blew, whipping his coat open, and he shivered. On trial, before his judges. Martin Sayre, do you dare risk your immortal soul for this momentary fling? Confess, go to the flame willingly, with confession on your lips, accept the flame, that too is momentary, and rejoice forever in Paradise.

  “Dr. Sayre, you’re a reasonable man. You know that we can’t do anything for your wife. She will be allowed to bear her child here. No other hospital would admit her, none of the city hospitals would dare. We won’t harm her, Dr. Sayre. We won’t do anything that is not for her own good. ...”

  Torquemada must have argued so.

  And, somewhere else. He couldn’t keep them apart, all the same, different faces, but the same. “Of course, the child will have to be taken from her, no matter what happens. The fear of death is a disease as dangerous almost as death itself. It drives man mad. These new children must not be infected with it. . . .”

  And somewhere else. “Ah, yes, Dr. Sayre. Meant to call you back, but got tied up. Appropriations Committee sessions, don’t you know. Well now, Dr. Sayre, this little theory of yours about the serum. I’ve been doing some thinking on that, Dr. Sayre, and don’t you know, I can’t come up with anything to corroborate what you say. Now if you can furnish some hard proof, don’t you know, well now, that would make a difference. Yes, sir, make a big difference.”

  And again, “Hello, Martie, I just don’t know. You may be absolutely right. But there’s no way to get to anything to make sure. I can’t risk everything here on a wild-goose chase. I checked your data file, as you suggested, and they have a diagnosis made by a Dr. Fischer of Lester B. Hayes Memorial Hospital, who examined you extensively in four examinations from March through August of this year. He recommended treatment for schizophrenia; you refused. Face it, Martie, I have to ask myself, isn’t this just a schizophrenic construct?”

  He should have jumped, he decided. He really should have jumped. He opened the door to the apartment to find Julia surrounded by their luggage, her coat over a chair, and sketch pads strewn about her on the floor.

  “Honey, what’s the matter?”

  “I want to go home. Now. We have seats for six o’clock. ...”

  “But, Julia, you know ...”

  “Martie, with you, or without you, I’m going home.”

  “Are you giving up, then? Is that it? You go slinking back licked now, let them take away your baby, do whatever they mean to do to you. . . .”

  “Martie, I can’t explain anything. I never can, you know. But I have to go back. I have work to do before the baby comes. I just have to. It’s like this with every artist I know. Jacques Remy, Jean Vance, Porter, Dee Richardson . . . I’ve been in touch with different ones here and there, and they’re all driven to work now. Some of my best friends simply didn’t have time to see me. None of them can explain it. There’s a creative explosion taking place and we’re helpless. Oh, if I could drink, I could probably resist it by getting dead drunk and staying that way. ...”

  “What are you going to do?” He picked up several sheets of her drawing paper, but there were only meaningless scribbles on it.

  “I don’t know. I can’t get it on paper. I need my tools, the sandstone. My hands know, will know when they start. . . .”

  “Julia, you’re feverish. Let me get you a sleeping pill. We’ll go home in a day or two, if you still feel like this. Please . . .”

  She grabbed up her coat and swung it about her shoulders, jerking her arms through the sleeves, paying no attention to him. “What time is it?”

  “Four. Sit down, honey. You’re as pale as a ghost. . . .”

  “We’ll have to wait at the airport, but if we don’t leave now, traffic will get so bad. Let’s start now, Martie. We can have a sandwich and coffee while we wait.”

  At the airport she couldn’t sit still. She walked the length of the corridors, rode the ramps to the upper levels, watched planes arriving and departing, walked to the lowest levels and prowled in and out of shops. Finally they boarded their plane and the strap forced her into a semblance of quietude.

  “Martie, how do you, science, explain dreams? The content of dreams? Wait, there’s more. And the flashes of intuition that almost everyone experiences from time to time? The jumps into new fields that scientists make, proposing new theories explaining the universe in a way that no one had ever thought of before? Deja vu feelings? Oh, what else? Flashes of what seems to be telepathy? Clairvoyance? Hilary’s X factor? All those things that scientists don’t usually want to talk about?”

  “I don’t. I don’t try. I don’t know the answer. And no one else does either.” The engines roared and they were silent until the mammoth jet was above the clouds. Clouds covered the earth from Chicago to Kennedy Airport.

  Julia looked down sometime later and said, “That’s like it is with us. There are clouds hiding something from us, and once in a while a strong light probes through for a minute. The clouds thin out, or the light is strong for a short time, whatever. It doesn’t last. The cloud layer thickens, or the power source can’t keep up the strength of the beam, and there are only the clouds. No one who wasn’t there or didn’t see through them at that moment would believe they could be penetrated. And trying to make a whole out of such glimpses is a futile thing. Now a bit of blue sky, now a star, now pitch-black sky, now the lights of a passing plane ...”

  “So we invent an infrared light that penetrates the clouds. ...”

  “What if there were something on the other side of the layer that was trying to get through to us, just as much as we were trying to get through from this side, and with as little success . . . ?” She hadn’t even heard him. Martie took her hand and held it, letting her talk on. Her hand was warm and relaxed now that they were actually heading for home.

  “Suppose that it, whatever it is, gets through only now and then, but when it does it is effective because it knows what it’s looking for, and we never do. Not infrared . . .” She had heard. “But the other direction. Inward. We send other kinds of probes. Psychoanalysis, EEG, drugs, hypnosis, dream analysis . . . We are trying to get through, but we don’t know how, or what we’re trying to reach, or how to know when we have reached it.”

  “God?” Martie turned to look at her. “You’re talking about reaching God?”

  “No. I think that man has always thought of it as God, or some such thing, but only because man has always sensed its presence and didn’t know what it was or how it worked, but he knew that it was more powerful than anything else when it did work. So, he called it God.”

  “Honey, we’ve always been afraid of what we didn’t understand. Magic, God, devils . . .”

  “Martie, until you can explain why it is that more comes out of some minds than goes in, you haven’t a leg to stand on, and you know it.”

  Like the new geometries, he thought. The sum can be greater than its parts. Or, parallel lines might meet in some remote distance. He was silent, considering it, and Julia dozed. “But, dammit,” he breathed a few minutes later. . . .

  “You’re a Hull, Watson, Skinner man,” Julia finished, not rousing from her light sleep. He stared at her. She hadn’t studied psychology in her life. She didn’t know Hull from Freud from Jung.

  The polishing wheel screamed for hours each day as the carborundum paste cut into the quartzite. Martie dragged Julia from it for her meals, when it was time to rest, at bedtime.

  “Honey, you’ll hurt yourself. It might be hard on the baby. ...”

  She laughed. “Have I ever looked better or healthier?”

  Thin, pale, but with a fiery intensity that made her more beautiful than he had seen her in their lives together. Her eyes were luminous. The
tension that had racked her for months was gone. She carried the baby as if unaware of the extra burden, and when she slept, it was deep untroubled sleep that refreshed her wholly.

  “You’re the one who is suffering, darling,” she said softly, fairy-touching his cheek. Her hands were very rough now, fingernails split and broken jaggedly. He caught her rough hand and pressed it hard against his cheek.

  “Wymann has been calling, hasn’t he?” Julia asked after a moment. She didn’t pull her hand from his face. He turned it over and kissed the palm. “It’s all right to talk about it, Martie. I know he’s been calling. They want to see me as soon as possible, to make sure of the baby, to see if the delivery will be normal, or if a section is called for. It’s all right.”