Aftermath a-1

by Charles Sheffield

  And there was more. Equipment in low Earth orbit would also be affected. That included the space stations — stations on which the Mars expedition had been depending for its safe return to Earth.

  Celine thought again of her parents and her brother. They were probably not in situations critically dependent on electronic technology. They were all right.

  But she was not. The chances of survival of the first Mars expedition had suddenly dropped by many orders of magnitude.

  Sure, they should be able to fire retro-rockets to match speed with Earth. Sure, they ought to be able to park the Schiaparelli in Earth orbit. But the most difficult part of the journey home, the final reentry, would still lie ahead. And for that reentry, they needed resources that no longer existed.

  5

  As Grace Mackay was leaving Saul’s office, Auden Travis popped back in the doorway. “You have no other meetings on your calendar this evening, Mr. President—”

  “And plenty to do. I’ll eat right here, if you could pass the word.”

  “Yes, sir. But I was about to add, you have two people still waiting to see you, Dr. Singer and Ms. Silvers. Also, we have more working lines. South Carolina is patched in—”

  “Good.”

  “ — and Mrs. Steinmetz is on the line. It’s not one of her better days, sir. She is referring to you as Ben.”

  “Bring Dr. Singer in, and tell him to take the other headset. Then put Mrs. Steinmetz on the line. I want Dr. Singer to hear her. I’ll see Ms. Silvers last, and she can eat with me. Order for two.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Was that a faint look of distaste on Auden Travis’s handsome face as he left? Better that, Saul decided, than the knowing smirk that a heterosexual aide might offer.

  He sighed — Why me, God? — and picked up the old-fashioned headset as Dr. Forrest Singer entered, nodded, and moved to the other working telephone.

  “Hello, Mother.” Saul waited. When there was no reply, he went on, “How are you feeling?”

  “They’re not feeding me right.” The voice on the other end of the line came through faint and scratchy, with odd breaks between the words. “And they have different people giving me my bath and cleaning my rooms.”

  “I’ll talk to them, Mother. I’ll make sure it gets fixed. We have trouble lots of places, because of the supernova.”

  “Oh? Well, you know that’s nothing to do with me. I can’t do anything about that. What are you doing, Ben? Are you meeting any nice girls?”

  “This is Saul, Mother. I’m very busy. Too busy to think much about meeting girls.”

  “Why haven’t you been calling me? I don’t think you’ve called for a long time. I don’t know when you last called me.”

  “I’m sorry, Mother. They’ve had a lot of trouble with the telephones. I’ll try to call more often.”

  “You ought to take a break, you work too hard. Make them fix the food better here. They’ll listen to you, they don’t seem to listen to me at all.”

  “I’ll tell them, Mother.”

  “And make sure you take a break from work sometimes. Go down to the temple, have a social life.”

  “I’ll try, Mother. It’s hard to get out at the moment, there’s so much going on here.”

  “How’s Tricia?”

  “I guess she’s fine. But I haven’t seen her for ages.”

  “You need to meet some nice girls.”

  “I know. I’ll keep looking, Mother.”

  “Girls like Tricia. Don’t you be going with any of those dirty Washington women. You don’t need those, the world is full of nice respectable girls.”

  Saul made the translation. For respectable, read Jewish. For Jewish, read Tricia Goldsmith — who was not in fact Jewish.

  “I’d like to meet a nice girl, Mother. But right now I have to make sure you get better food, and have your rooms cleaned the way you like them. So I’m going to get off the phone this minute, and tell them to give you special attention.”

  “Not special attention, just the way it’s supposed to be. I’m sure we’re paying enough. We need to get our money’s worth.”

  “I know. I’ll take care of it, right now. And I’ll call you tomorrow. I love you, Mother.”

  “I love you, too, Saul. You’re a good son. I’m proud of you.”

  “Good-bye, Mother.”

  As Saul removed the headset he found he was gripping it so hard that the knuckles on his left hand were white. He glanced over at Forrest Singer. The doctor shrugged.

  “I see no signs of further deterioration. She started out confusing you with your father, but by the end of the conversation she knew who you were and she got your name right.”

  “Before all the troubles started, I had a report dropped off on my desk about a new treatment at the Institute for Probatory Therapies. Telomod therapy? It sounded promising. I was wondering if it might help Mrs. Steinmetz.”

  “I recommend against that, very strongly.” Forrest Singer, it always seemed to Saul, spoke as though the two of them were equals. Saul possibly held the slightly inferior position in the doctor’s eyes. Saul was the President of the United States, true; but Forrest Singer was an M.D.

  “First,” Singer went on, “the treatment you refer to is in the earliest stages of testing. It is quite likely to cause unpredictable and possibly catastrophic side effects. And even if telomod therapy were able to improve your mother’s health or longevity, it could do little or nothing for her mental state. Is there any value to turning back the physical clock, if we cannot do the same for the mental one? Hannah Steinmetz’s mind will remain as it is today, that of a ninety-two-year-old lady with moderate dementia. Telomod therapy might recondition the glial cells of the brain, but too many neurons are already dead for restoration of mental functions.”

  Forrest Singer sounded very sure of himself. Unlike Saul, he didn’t have to deal with the choice of guilts that went with doing something, or of doing nothing.

  Which was the greater sin? To allow your mother to sink steadily to incontinence and total mindlessness; or to arrest the progress of her condition, and subject her to years of miserable dependence on others, illuminated by an occasional faint flash of memory and the knowledge of what she once was.

  “I am always happy to advise you concerning your mother,” Singer went on. Saul knew that was not true, but it was the socially acceptable lie. “However, Mr. President, my principal reason for coming here as your personal physician is to discuss your own health.”

  “I feel fine.” Another socially acceptable lie.

  “You are, for a man of fifty-six with your lifestyle and the unusual stresses of your job, in good condition. Early symptoms of osteoarthritis are still present, and I have sent to the White House kitchen a menu with somewhat different supplements designed to reverse that. I do not think you will notice any changes in the food. As usual, I am recommending a decreased consumption of alcohol.”

  Singer smiled, though with little evidence of humor. “But as usual, I doubt that my recommendation will have any effect on your behavior. Principally, however, I am here to discuss with you the series of tests we have been conducting for the past few months. They were interrupted just over a week ago, when the equipment failed. However, I had already drawn my main conclusions. First, in sexual terms you are physiologically normal, unremarkable in any way.”

  “You might find another way to put that.”

  Saul smiled as he spoke, but Singer still looked puzzled. At forty-eight he was somber and literal-minded, and Saul’s guess was that he had been equally somber and literal-minded at twenty-one. He was also thoughtful, meticulous, and the best diagnostician Saul had ever met. Saul had long since accepted the fact that his own body was now public property. For two years, everything from his bowel movements to a spot on the end of his nose was grist for the media. But they wouldn’t get the information from Forrest Singer. The man would freeze-dry them if they touched on anything that he considered protected by the doc
tor-patient relationship.

  After a moment the physician continued, “I find your general activity level for your age to be above average, though well within the normal bounds of variability. Furthermore, all the chemical and ionic levels within your body are satisfactory.”

  The physician sounded as though he was imparting news, but nothing so far was a surprise to Saul. He nodded. “So, put it together and what have you got?”

  “You have a conclusion which supports my original suspicion and, I would suppose, your own. You are impotent; but it arises from psychological rather than from physical causes. That you have become so since taking the oath as President is unlikely to reflect a coincidence.”

  “I agree.” Saul knew that Forrest Singer was not the man to appreciate the irony of the situation. Here he was, President, a position that many of his predecessors had regarded as providing an endless sexual free lunch with more offers than a man could possibly accept. And most of them had been married. He was healthy, long-since divorced, reluctantly celibate — and surrounded by willing young women. There were groupies for sky guys and groupies for media stars, but a President presented a special challenge. For while you could count astronauts and rollers in the hundreds, the country had only one President.

  “So what’s your advice, Doctor?”

  “Normally, I would recommend that a man in your situation should make opportunity follow desire. By this I mean that when next you feel strong sexual arousal, you should seek to act on it immediately. However, your position as President makes that course of action rather difficult.”

  Saul stared at him. Forrest Singer didn’t joke, and he wasn’t joking now. When next you feel strong sexual arousal, you should seek to act on it immediately. That certainly had the potential to enliven a White House dinner party.

  “As it is,” Singer went on, “I recommend that you do nothing, and continue to live as normally as possible. Eat more. Drink less alcohol. And try not to worry about your condition, which can only make it worse.”

  “I’ve certainly got plenty of other things to worry about.” Saul turned to stare out of the window. “Thank you, Doctor.”

  “It is, as always, an honor to serve the President.”

  “And ask the lady waiting outside to come in, would you.”

  Saul was being a little petty, and he knew it. He didn’t want Auden Travis ushering Yasmin Silvers into the Oval Office and standing there until he was told to go away. Yasmin was newer to the White House than Auden, and he surely resented her frequent meetings with the President.

  Saul was still facing the window. It was dusk, and the emergency lighting system of the White House did not include the grounds and outside streets. Washington was darker than it had been in a century and a half. The glass of the window was like a mirror. Saul saw his own reflection and recognized a resemblance. He was an inch shorter than Grace Mackay, and he had a scholar’s stoop where she was all straight-backed military, but they shared the gaunt, spectral look of people too preoccupied to think much about food.

  Tonight, he would eat everything that came regardless of appetite. And, in spite of Forrest Singer, he would drink whatever he felt like.

  In the glass he saw Yasmin Silvers silently entering the room. She was of medium height, with a smooth and controlled walk that reminded him of a prowling cat. A cat may look at a king. Could a cat stalk a President?

  He turned, to admire the skin that he had seen only faintly in the reflection. Her mixed Asian and Hispanic descent had given her a flawless ivory complexion, with a hint of darker color. The hands that held a brown folder were long-fingered and delicate, their trimmed nails painted a startling silver. She gave him her usual knockout smile.

  “Good evening, Mr. President.”

  “Hello, Yasmin. Sit down and make yourself comfortable.” He went across and opened the long credenza. “I took the liberty of ordering dinner for both of us, so we can talk while we eat. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had nothing since eleven this morning.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Maybe she took his remark as a criticism, because she sat down and at once opened the folder. “I would not trouble you so late, but a new item has come up for rapid decision and action. It involves Internal Affairs.” She shook her head as he held an empty glass toward her. “Not for me, sir. Not until we are finished with business.”

  If she was hinting that he ought to do the same, then she had too much damned cheek. Saul mixed a strong brandy and soda with no ice and walked back to sit at the other side of the coffee table.

  “I’ve read briefing documents today until my eyes are dropping out. I’ll look at what you have later, but can’t you tell me about it?”

  “Yes, sir. I can state the problem very simply. What are we going to do about judicial sleep?”

  “I wasn’t planning to do anything. With our infrastructure down and nearly out, judicial sleep isn’t high on my list. Let’s get food and power and water and communications and transportation back, then we’ll worry about the criminals.”

  Saul had been elected as a Centrist Party candidate, in favor of severe punishment for criminals but opposed to capital punishment. It was a highly popular part of his platform. Yasmin Silvers surely knew that.

  And she was nodding vigorously, a tress of sleek hair falling over one eye. “I’m not referring to the late Secretary of Internal Affairs’s revised rules for sentencing, sir. Those can certainly wait. But we have nine hundred and thirty thousand people in judicial sleep.”

  “Do you have a list of sentences?”

  But Saul was stalling while he thought through the options. He knew all he needed to know about the criminals; they were iced down for anything from five years to one thousand.

  “Not with me, sir. I can get it for you if you need it.”

  Saul nodded. The perfect solution: JS, judicial sleep. No one was put to death, so it avoided all the old arguments about capital punishment. If new evidence came along to prove you innocent, you could be awakened. If you died while in the coma, well, tough, but it would be of natural causes.

  And there was another factor, maybe the most important one of all. JS was cheap. No need for guards. No need, in fact, for any supervisory staff. Although one or two supervisory staff could be found at every JS facility, they were there only to provide the right public image of a caring and careful government. The smart monitoring and servicers took care of everything — drugs, nutrition, medical tests, and treatments — without ever finding it necessary to awaken their charges.

  Storage space was minimal. A two-by-two-by-eight darkened cubicle per prisoner, and who needed more? Certainly not the iced-down occupants, whether dreaming or dreamless. Certainly not the public, paying for the upkeep and begrudging the expense, though it was only a hundredth of the cost per inmate of an old-fashioned prison. Not even those sentenced were likely to complain. If they didn’t know it before they were caught, they soon learned the degree of public intolerance of criminals. Icing down was pleasant compared with some of the citizen proposals.

  Judicial sleep was the perfect solution. And like all perfect answers, it was fine until you ran into the snags.

  “Do you have the JS prison sites?”

  “Right here, sir.”

  Rather than offering a written list, she had taken the trouble to mark the locations on a map of the country. Saul took it and spent a few minutes in silent study.

  “Is it all right, sir?” she said at last. “I had to do it in rather a hurry.”

  The eagerness for approval. Maybe that was the best part of being President, everyone around you sought to please. It was also the most dangerous part. When people constantly tried to guess what you would like to hear, necessary bad news might never reach you.

  “It’s perfectly all right, very good in fact,” Saul said, and watched her glow. “The map is invaluable. It also tells us what we have to do.”

  “Sir?”

  “I’m afraid so. The JS support systems are sure
to be packed with microcircuits, so they won’t be working. That suggests we ought to wake everyone at the prisons, otherwise they may die. But once awake, they will need food and shelter. Remember that a big percentage of those placed in judicial sleep are there because they were violent criminals. Whatever they needed, they took. JS doesn’t change someone’s personality. It’s all our police and military can do to keep things reasonably quiet as it is. And most of the sites are within fifty miles of major population centers. Do you want to be remembered as the person who unleashed a million desperate criminals on an innocent and unprepared citizenry?”

  “No, sir. Of course not.”

  “Well, neither do I. Think politics for a moment. If we do nothing, I can say that all our resources had to be devoted to improving the situation for law-abiding citizens during a very difficult time. That is a safe statement, and it happens to be true. On the other hand, if I revive those in judicial sleep, and even one of them commits a crime of violence, I will be blamed as much as if I did it myself.”

  “I understand, sir.”

  But her eyes were downcast, and her lips trembled.

  Saul focused, and made one of those leaps of understanding that had brought him the presidency.

  “Who is it, Yasmin? One of your family?”

  “Yes, sir.” She raised lovely tawny eyes to his. “You know.”

  “I didn’t, until a moment ago.”

  “I didn’t conceal it, it’s in my personnel record. My younger brother.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He stabbed my uncle, after my uncle had raped him. Raymond was sentenced to seven years. He has been in judicial sleep for three.”

  “Surely in a case of rape, self-defense or extenuating circumstances — ’’

  “My uncle is Senator Lopez.”

  And now she said it, Saul remembered. Yasmin’s application for a job as a White House aide had come with a strong push from Nick Lopez. The sexual tastes of Senator Lopez were one of Washington’s poorest-kept secrets.

  “Yasmin, how long can people survive in judicial sleep if the support systems are not working?”