Aftermath a-1

by Charles Sheffield

  “So the astronauts and cosmonauts were hurled into space using chemical rockets. There was no margin for error. And most of them lived, and a few of them died, and people like my father faded into despair. By the time the revised outer space treaty was signed in ’05, it was too late for him.”

  He was lecturing, to Tricia who either knew it already or didn’t need to. She didn’t seem to mind. She was leaning forward, food and drink forgotten. It was one of her most endearing aspects. When she was your partner she focused her attention on you and you alone, as if there were no other people in the world.

  Except that she wasn’t his partner, not now and not for more than two years. She was married to Joseph Goldsmith. Saul ought to be asking what she was doing here tonight rather than dwelling on his own obsessions.

  She was nodding at him eagerly. “Go on, Saul. I’m listening. If you are worried, I want to hear.”

  “I am worried, but more than that I’m thinking I’m a lucky man. I always told myself that I was so different from my father. Now I realize I’m just like him. He spent decades pining for the space program that seemed within reach when he was twenty-five years old. It didn’t happen, not in his lifetime.

  “When I was twenty-five, I had my own vision. The whole world was going to be one, tied together by electronic information transfers. I wondered when I would find time to sleep, because the financial deals I wanted to follow around the world were in every time zone. I knew the markets by heart, and all their hours of opening and closing: Auckland, Sydney, Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing, Jakarta, Rangoon, Bombay, Karachi, Tehran, Beirut, St. Petersburg, Cairo, Cape Town, Rome, Paris, London, Rio, Buenos Aires, Santiago, New York, Toronto, Chicago, Houston, Mexico City, San Francisco, Honolulu. I zigzagged north and south while moving west with the sun, hemstitching the world. I was sure what the future held, and it meant that I had to be everywhere.”

  Saul paused. “I’m sorry, Tricia, you know all this stuff. I’m babbling at you. It’s the wine.”

  But it wasn’t the wine. It was Tricia’s eyes, intent on his, signaling that he was telling her the newest, most important, most fascinating information in the world.

  “Go on, Saul.”

  “Well, I’ll keep it short. My future didn’t happen, either. The Turnabout Riots happened instead. Fears of invasion of privacy, return to real currency, the mektek factory revolt, the jobs-for-humans movement, refusal to accept electronic data. This country led the retreat. I felt twenty years ago as my father must have felt fifty years ago. My future was destroyed. I went into politics to try to save it.

  “I failed here at home. But other nations and strategic alliances moved ahead while we seemed to be stuck, going nowhere.

  “Now I imagine what would have happened to this country if I had succeeded. We would have been twenty more years down the road to a total electronic culture. Supernova Alpha would have done to us what it did to the Golden Rim and the Sino Consortium, every element of the economy ruined.

  “I totally believe what I’m going to say now, although I can never suggest it in public: the Turnabout Riots were the best thing that ever happened to this country. We could be infinitely worse off. And we would have been — if my future had happened.”

  Saul studied his glass. He didn’t remember drinking from it, but again it was empty. Three-fourths of the bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon was gone. He wondered if he was boring Tricia, despite her apparent rapt attention. He was certainly talking too much. More than he had ever intended to. He turned to her.

  She read it as an invitation to speak, but her response surprised him. “Do you think there is any way that the supernova could make someone go insane?”

  “Not that I can imagine. Who’s the person?”

  “Joseph. My husband.”

  “I know who your husband is.” It occurred to Saul that in fact he knew little about her husband beyond his name, and that he disliked the man for the good and at the moment sufficient reason that Joseph Goldsmith had Tricia, and Saul did not. Of course, she must have somehow agreed to the arrangement, but that was not the point. The point was that Tricia was really his, not Goldsmith’s.

  He had the sense not to mention this. Instead he said, “How old is he?”

  “He’s fifty-six.”

  “Joseph Goldsmith is fifty-six? But that’s my age!”

  She laughed at him, the throaty chuckle that he liked so much. “I know. I’m told that more than one person can have it. But you are in much better shape than he is.”

  “He’s too old for you. Why do you think he might be going mad?”

  “He won’t leave the house. He won’t even come out of the basement. He says there are rays from the supernova that will sterilize him.”

  “That’s news to me. My scientific advisers have said a lot of things about the supernova, but not that.”

  “Joseph doesn’t take any notice of scientists. He’s quite well off, you know.”

  It was like saying that Hitler was not altogether a nice chap, but Saul just nodded.

  “He’s planning to have deeper and deeper levels dug,” Tricia went on. “Under the house, so we can go down there and save ourselves from the rays. There’s no way he could be right, is there?”

  “He sounds insane.”

  “I think he is. He wants me to stay down there with him. But I won’t.” Tricia popped to her feet, went across to the side table, and poured the remainder of the bottle of white wine into her glass. She drank it in two gulps, returned, and leaned over to run her wet tongue over Saul’s ear. “Hearing you say that is a big load off my mind.”

  Hearing that your husband is crazy is a load off your mind? Saul didn’t say that. He could feel the mood swing. Tricia’s face was different now. In the old days, the looseness of mouth and flushed cheeks signaled sexual urgency. She sat down, and her stockinged foot touched his ankle and wriggled up his calf.

  How could she move so quickly from worry to open lust? In the same way that he had moved in that direction himself, from the moment when she spoke of her husband as though of some stranger. Tricia always claimed that she just read Saul’s moods and responded to them. A chameleon, he thought. And then, a sign of how far from sober he was, La Dame aux Chameleons.

  “Back in a moment.” Tricia was on her feet again. She slipped out of the room, touching the light switch as she went to leave Saul in semidarkness.

  He stood up, too, and went to stand in front of the couch by the window. Outside, the city was brighter. General use of electricity was heavily restricted, but power was creeping back into the grid. Two weeks ago it had been riots and fires and murder in the streets. He had feared the collapse of society and a countrywide descent to barbarism. It turned out that most people, no matter what they might have said before Supernova Alpha, wanted their central government. To restore it, and keep it, they were performing miracles of improvisation.

  An old cargo plane lifting off from National Airport reminded Saul of his flight back from Indian Head. That led his thoughts to Yasmin. By now she must have been to Maryland Point and the Q-5 Syncope Facility. She would be rejoicing, or she would be in mourning.

  Yasmin was deeply suspicious of Tricia, without ever meeting her. She’s divorced again, and she’s hunting.

  Yasmin sounded confident, a woman assessing another woman’s motives. But Yasmin admitted that she didn’t understand at all why Tricia had walked out of Saul’s life two and a half years ago. And Yasmin was not unbiased. Saul played a role in her own ambitions.

  He heard a rustle of fabric behind him, and turned not knowing what to expect. In the old days Tricia had been a constant sexual surprise, coming to him as anything from demure virgin to nude porn star.

  She was still wearing the dress of midnight blue, but she was now barefoot. She came into his arms and nestled her face against his neck.

  “You’re still thinking, aren’t you? Saul, you shouldn’t. This is the time in the evening when your brain ought to be turned off.”
/>   She snuggled close. He leaned over and smelled her skin, perfumed now with the added musk of sexual desire. He reached down to the hem of her dress and ran his hand up inside the front of it. As he expected, she was bare; and she was ready.

  So was he, reassuringly erect and firm. Yasmin’s warning from the previous night was faint and far-off. But it was enough to make Saul murmur, as he nuzzled Tricia’s bare shoulder, “You feel so good. Why did you ever leave me?”

  She was breathing hard through her mouth. She pulled away to look into his eyes. “I thought you didn’t want me. It broke my heart. I couldn’t bear it and I ran away.”

  It didn’t make sense — he had told her that he did want her, very much. But in Saul’s present condition, perfect logic was not important. He put his arm around her and tried to ease her down onto the couch.

  To his surprise, she resisted. “No, Saul. Not now.”

  It could be part of a game, although it didn’t sound like one. He tried again. She pulled away and stood head lowered, her arms by her sides.

  “I’m sorry.” Saul reached out and stroked her bare shoulder. “I thought you were ready.”

  Thought. He had been absolutely sure. But Tricia was shaking her head and backing away.

  “It’s not that, Saul. This is all my fault, I should never have started. I’m still a married woman. But seeing you, and kissing you, and you touching me, it made me so excited. I felt as though we had never been away from each other. But now — I can’t.”

  She was leaning over, picking up her shoes. She hurried to the door, paused on the threshold, and turned her dark head. “Oh, Saul.” Her voice trembled. “I’ve missed you so much. You have no idea. I wish we could, but I just can’t. Not while I’m still married. Please forgive me, and let me go.”

  She vanished into the darkened room beyond the door. Saul took two steps after her, and stopped. What would he do if he caught up with her? It wasn’t a sex game, she wasn’t being coy. He couldn’t — and wouldn’t — drag her back against her will.

  Saul wandered through into the bathroom off the dining room. Tricia’s stockings and panties formed a crumpled ball in front of the sink. He reached down, picked them up, and stood with them in his hand. They provided more proof that Tricia had been very ready for lovemaking before she abruptly changed her mind. He thrust the stockings and flimsy damp panties into his pocket and stared at his own reflection in the long bathroom mirror.

  He thought he looked normal enough. No visible evidence of the overwhelming sexual excitement that he had felt three minutes ago, or the awful sense of letdown he was feeling now. Tricia was probably feeling even worse.

  But …

  His instincts told him that something else was going on, something that he did not understand. He could not get to it without more information — and not in his present fuddled condition.

  I’m still a married woman. And again. Not while I’m still married. Was she saying that she and Joseph Goldsmith were in the process of splitting up? She certainly had grounds, if Goldsmith had become a raving lunatic. But if she was in the process of getting a divorce, why hadn’t she said so outright?

  Saul wandered slowly back toward his bedroom through a silent White House. He could see the irony, even if he could not appreciate it. He had been without sex for a long time, more than two years. There had been opportunities, with willing partners, but he had been unable to perform.

  Now in the last two evenings he had been ready, eager, and able. In both cases, after a roaring start, the woman had balked and left him frustrated.

  Saul took off his clothes and went naked to bed. Two successive blue-ball nights. He had known nothing like it in the four decades since he was an eager teenager.

  There was only one consolation. Even if the statistic formed some kind of melancholy presidential record, it was not likely to find its way into the histories of the Steinmetz White House.

  30

  Celine awoke to music, faint, far-off, and very familiar. That driving bass and those dissonant brass chords had given her energy on a thousand mornings. It was the anthem for their expedition: Mars, from Gustav Hoist’s suite The Planets. The team had chosen it together after final selection. She listened to its urgent pulse for twenty seconds before she recalled where she was.

  Earth. At last. But a changed Earth. Zoe, Alta, and Ludwig, companions for more than five years, dead. A difficult landing, followed by a bizarre encounter. The past twenty-four hours had been one prolonged nightmare.

  She listened, grieving for lost friends, until the final chords. Music for the Mars expedition. So why was it playing here, deep underground in the lair of the Legion of Argos? Pearl Lazenby disapproved of all space travel.

  Celine opened her eyes. If the music had given her strength on a thousand mornings, it must do so one more time. She sat up. Before going to bed she and Wilmer had pushed their cots together. Then she had fallen asleep so quickly that it made no difference. She glanced across at him in the faint light coming in from under the door.

  He was sound asleep on his back, his mouth open. She looked at him fondly. It took more than music to budge Wilmer. He woke in the morning only for food. In the first few weeks of their relationship it had also been for sex — Celine was a morning person — but he had complained so abominably about being wakened and about his need for calories that she soon gave up the effort. Anyway, fifteen minutes from the start she would be on her own in bed. Wilmer’s idea of afterplay in the morning was a stack of blueberry pancakes and a quart of milk.

  She slipped out of bed and went to peek into the other room. Jenny was asleep. Reza was over in a corner, eyes closed and meditating in the lotus posture. There was no point in talking to either one.

  Celine put her shoes on — she was otherwise fully dressed — and went across to the door. Rather to her surprise, it was unlocked. As she opened it she saw why. There was no place for a lock, but with her first step outside a gray-clad figure rose like a ghost from the floor.

  “You are awake.” No greeting, no cheery good morning. It was a male, younger than any she had seen so far. In the dim light and with his oversized uniform he looked about fourteen. He held his semiautomatic rifle as though it made him more nervous than it was likely to make anyone else.

  “I am awake,” Celine said. “My companions are still asleep. What time is it?”

  For a second, she wondered if even that information was restricted. But at last the youth said, “It is almost seven o’clock.”

  “Then it is time for breakfast. We had no real dinner last night. How do we get food?”

  That seemed to baffle him. He rubbed his chin, which was sprouting faint downy signs of a beard, and hesitated.

  “I will have to get someone to bring you food.”

  “And I need to use the bathroom.”

  He turned his face away and looked very uncomfortable. “I will get someone to deal with — that problem. I was placed here only to make sure that no one came out through this door.”

  “But I just did come out through it.”

  The attempt at a lighter tone was a waste of time. He stared at her and said again, “I will have to get someone else. Do not go anywhere. I will bring someone who can answer your questions.”

  He marched away along the corridor. Celine called after him, “Why are they playing that music?”

  He turned his head. “In honor of the surviving members of the returned Mars expedition.” He did not stop, and Celine’s call, “But that’s us,” received no response.

  She went back inside and poked Wilmer hard in the ribs. He grunted and burrowed under the blankets. “What do you make of that, cobber?” The heap of bedclothes did not move. “Everyone here agrees that we defiled Heaven by going into space. Pearl Lazenby told us so herself. Now they’re playing music to celebrate our safe return. Are we heroes or villains?”

  Jenny appeared in the doorway, rubbing her eyes. “We’re villains,” she said. “You don’t guard heroe
s to keep them from wandering around.”

  “You tried it?”

  “In the middle of the night. The guard was asleep on the floor. I’m afraid I trod on him. I guess I’m lucky he didn’t shoot me.”

  “No. He’d have to get somebody else to shoot you. But if we’re villains, why were they playing the Mars music in our honor?”

  “I heard that. I thought I must be dreaming. If they’re playing anything, though, it’s on orders from Pearl Lazenby. They don’t blink in this place without her approval.”

  Celine sat on her cot. “If that music was played in all the corridors and tunnels, a lot of her followers will be wondering why.”

  “As we are.” Jenny sat down next to Celine. “She must have a plan. She wants to use us in some way.”

  “Which would mean she intends to keep us, and not let us go.”

  “I hope you’re wrong.” Jenny rubbed at her thigh muscles. “We’re weaker than anyone here, and I don’t think I could walk a kilometer in this gravity. But I want out. If Pearl Lazenby is running a puppet show, I won’t—”

  She broke off, because a woman in her early thirties was coming in through the door. She had a round face, straight black hair cut short, and a kindly expression. She was dressed in a plain gray blouse and pants. Incongruously, she had an automatic pistol stuck in her waistband. A ruddy-faced older man weighing at least three hundred pounds waddled in behind her. Like Eli, his chest and cuffs bore an emblem of scarlet claws. His was more elaborate, a triplet of talons surrounding and clutching the central blue-green globe. On his belt he wore a holster containing a revolver, so ancient that Celine had never seen one like it except in museums.