That’s right, Dad, you will. I relaxed. “All right, Dad. I guess you’re right. I just wanted to hear someone tell me besides myself. I wanted you to tell me.” He smiled and nodded and sat down again, and I left him there, an old man lost in his thoughts.
I went to the bathroom and closed the door behind me, glad that restored plumbing had been one of Fresh Start’s first priorities to be realized. I spent a few minutes assembling some items I had brought back from New York City, and removing the back of the septic tank behind the toilet bowl. Then I flushed the toilet.
Reaching into the tank I grabbed the gravity ball and flexed it horizontal so that the tank would not refill with water. Holding it in place awkwardly, I made a long arm and picked up the large bottle of chlorine bleach I had fetched from the city. As an irreplaceable relic of Civilization it was priceless—and utterly useless to modern man. I slipped my plugs into place and filled the tank with bleach, replacing the porcelain cover silently but leaving it slightly ajar. I bent again and grabbed a large canister—also a valuable but useless antique—of bathroom bowl cleaner. It was labeled “Vanish,” and I hoped the label was prophetic. I poured the entire canister into the bowl.
Hang the expense, I thought, and giggled insanely.
Then I put the cover down on the seat, hid the bleach and bowl cleaner and left, whistling softly through my teeth.
I felt good, better than I had since I left New York.
I walked through inky dark to the lake, and I sat among the pines by the shore, flinging stones at the water, trying to make them skip. I couldn’t seem to get it right. I was used to the balancing effect of a left arm. I rubbed my stump ruefully and lay back and just thought for awhile. I had lied to my father—it was not over. But it would be soon.
Right or wrong, I thought, removing my plugs and lighting a joint, it sure can be necessary.
Moonlight shattered on the branches overhead and lay in shards on the ground. I breathed deep of the cool darkness, tasted pot and woods and distant animals and the good crisp scents of a balanced ecology, heard the faraway hum of wind-generators storing power for the work yet to be done. And I thought of a man gone mad with a dream of a better, simpler world; a man who, Heaven help him, meant well. And I thought of the tape recording I planned to leave behind me, explaining what I had done to The Council and the world.
CHAPTER SIX
Transcript of a Tape Recording Made by Isham Stone
(Fresh Start Judicial Archives)
I might as well address this tape to you, Collaci—I’ll bet my Musky-gun that you’re the first one to notice and play it. I hope you’ll listen to it as well, but that might be too much to ask, the first time around. Just keep playing it.
The story goes back a couple of months, to when I was in the city. By now you’ve no doubt found my journal, with its account of my day in New York, and you’ve probably noticed the missing ending. Well, there are two endings to that story. There’s the ending I told my father, and then there’s the one you’re about to hear. The true one.
I drifted in the darkness for a thousand years, helpless as a Musky in a hurricane, caroming off the inside of my skull. Memories swept by like drifting blimps, and I clutched at them as I sailed past, but the ones tangible enough to grasp burned my fingers. Vaguely, I sensed distant daylight on either side, decided those must be my ears and tried to steer for the right one, which seemed a bit closer. I singed my arm banking off an adolescent trauma, but it did the trick—I sailed out into daylight and landed on my face with a hell of a crash. I thought about getting up, but I couldn’t remember whether I’d brought my legs with me, and they weren’t talking. My arm hurt even more than my face, and something stank.
“Help?” I suggested faintly, and a pair of hands got me by the armpits. I rose in the air and closed my eyes against a sudden wave of vertigo. When it passed, I decided I was on my back in the bed I had just contrived to fall out of. High in my chest, a dull but insistent pain advised me to breathe shallowly.
I’ll be damned, I thought weakly. Collaci must have come along to back me up without telling me. Canny old son of a bitch, I should have thought to pick him up some toothpicks.
“Hey, Teach’.” I croaked, and opened my eyes.
Wendell Morgan Carlson leaned over me, concern in his gaze.
Curiously enough, I didn’t try to reach up and crush his larynx. I closed my eyes, relaxed all over, counted to ten very slowly, shook my head to clear it and opened my eyes again. Carlson was still there.
Then I tried to reach up and crush his larynx. I failed, of course, not so much because I was too weak to reach his larynx as because only one arm even acknowledged the command. My brain said that my left arm was straining upwards for Carlson’s throat, and complaining like hell about it too, but I didn’t see the arm anywhere. I looked down and saw the neatly bandaged stump and lifted it up absently to see if my arm was underneath it and it wasn’t. It dawned on me then that the stump was all the left arm I was ever going to find, and whacko: I was back inside my skull, safe in the friendly dark, ricocheting off smoldering recollections again.
The second time I woke up was completely different. One minute I was wrestling with a phantom, and then a switch was thrown and I was lucid. Play for time was my first thought, the tactical situation sucks. I opened my eyes.
Carlson was nowhere in sight. Or smell—but then my plugs were back in place.
I looked around the room. It was a room. Four walls, ceiling, floor, the bed I was in and assorted ugly furniture. Not a weapon in sight, nor anything I could make one from. A look out the window in the opposite wall confirmed my guess that I was in Butler Hall, apparently on the ground floor, not far from the main entrance. The great curved dome of Low “Library” was nearly centered in the windowframe, its great stone steps partly obscured by overgrown shrubbery in front of Butler. The shadows said it was morning, getting on toward noon. I closed my eyes, firmly.
Next I took stock of myself. My head throbbed a good deal, but it was easily drowned out by the ache in my chest. Unquestionably some ribs had broken, and it felt as through the ends were mismatched. But as near as I could tell the lung was intact—it didn’t hurt more when I inhaled. Not much more, anyway. My legs both moved when I asked them to, with a minimum of backtalk, and the ankles appeared sound. No need to open my eyes again, was there?
I stopped the inventory for a moment. In the back of my skull a clawed lizard yammered for release, and I devoted a few minutes to reinforcing the walls of its prison. When I could no longer hear the shrieking, I switched on my eyes again and quite dispassionately considered the stump on my left arm.
It looked like a good, clean job. The placement of the cut said it was a surgical procedure—it seemed as though the gangrene had been beaten. Oh fine, I thought, a benevolent madman I have to kill. Then I was ashamed. My mother had been benevolent, as I remembered her; and Israfel never got much chance to be anything. All men knew Carlson’s intentions had been good. I could kill him with one hand.
I wondered where he was.
A fly buzzed mournfully around the room. Hedges rustled outside the window, and somewhere birds sang, breathless trills that hung sparkling on the morning air. It was a beautiful day, just warm enough to be comfortable, no clouds evident, just enough breeze and the best part of the day was yet to come. It made me want to do go down by the stream and poke frogs with a stick, or go pick strawberries for Mr. Fletcher, red-stained hands and a bellyful of sweet and the trots next morning. It was a great day for an assassination.
I thought about it, considered the possibilities. Carlson was…somewhere. I was weaker than a Musky in a pressure cooker and my most basic armament was down by twenty-five percent. I was on unfamiliar territory, and the only objects in the room meaty enough to constitute weaponry were too heavy for me to lift. Break the windowpane and acquire a knife? How would I hold it? My sneakers were in sight across the room, under a chair holding the rest of my clothes, and I wond
ered if I could hide behind the door until Carlson entered, then strangle him with the laces.
I brought up short. How was I going to strangle Carlson with one hand?
Things swam then for a bit, as I got the first of an endless series of flashes of just how drastically my life was altered now by the loss of my arm. You’ll never use a chainsaw again, or a shovel, or a catcher’s mitt, or…
I buried the lizard again and forced myself to concentrate. Perhaps I could fashion a noose from my sneaker laces. With one hand? Could I? Maybe if I fastened one end of the lace to something, then looped the other end around his neck and pulled? I needn’t be strong, it could be arranged so that my weight did the killing…
Just in that one little instant I think I decided not to die, decided to keep on living with one arm, and the question never really arose in my mind again. I was too busy to despair, and by the time I could afford to—much later—the urge was gone.
All of my tentative plans, therapeutic as they were, hinged on one important question: could I stand up? It seemed essential to find out.
Until then I had moved only my eyes—now I tried to sit up. It was no harder than juggling bulldozers, and I managed to cut the scream down to an explosive, “Uh huh!” My ribs felt like glass, broken glass ripping through the muscle sheathing and pleural tissue. Sweat broke out on my forehead and I fought down dizziness and nausea, savagely commanding my body to obey me like a desperate rider digging spurs into a dying horse. I locked my right arm behind me and leaned on it, swaying but upright, and waited for the room to stop spinning. I spent the time counting to one thousand by eighths. Finally it stopped, leaving me with the feeling that a stiff breeze could start it spinning again.
All right then. Let’s get this show on the road, Stone. I swung a leg over the side of the bed, discovered with relief that my foot reached the floor. That would make it easier to balance upright on the edge of the bed before attempting to stand. Before I could lose my nerve I swung the other leg over, pushed off with my arm, and was sitting upright. The floor was an incredible distance below—had I really fallen that far and lived? Perhaps I should just wait for Carlson to return, get him to come close and sink my teeth into his jugular.
I stood up.
A staggering crescendo in the symphony of pain, ribs still carrying the melody. I locked my knees and tottered, moaning piteously like a kitten trapped on a cornice. It was the closest I could come to stealthy silence, and all things considered it was pretty damn close. My right shoulder was discernibly heavier than the left one, and it played hob with my balance. The floor, which had been steadily receding, was now so far away I stopped worrying about it—surely there would be time for the ’chute to open.
Well then, why not try a step or two?
My left leg was as light as a helium balloon—once peeled off the floor it tried to head for the ceiling, and it took an enormous effort to force it down again. The right leg fared no better. Then the room started spinning again, just as I’d feared, and it was suddenly impossible to keep either leg beneath my body, which began losing altitude rapidly. The ’chute didn’t open. There was a jarring crash, and a ghastly bounce. Many pretty lights appeared, and one of the screams fenced in behind closed teeth managed to break loose. The pretty lights gave way to flaking ceiling, and the ceiling gave way to blackness. I remembered a line from an old song Doctor Mike used to sing, something about “…roadmaps in a well-cracked ceiling…” and wished I’d had time to read the map…
I came out of it almost at once, I think. It felt as though the room was still spinning, but I was now spinning with it at the same velocity. By great good fortune I had toppled backward, across the bed. I took a tentative breath, and it still felt like my lung was intact. I was drenched with sweat, and I seemed to be lying on someone’s rock collection.
Okay, I decided, if you’re too weak to kill Carlson now, pretend you’re even weaker. Get back under the sheets and play dead, until your position improves. Isham Machiavelli, that’s me. You’d’ve been proud of me, Teach’.
The rock collection turned out to be wrinkled sheets. Getting turned around and back to where I’d started was easier than reeling a whale into a rowboat, and I had enough strength to arrange the sheets plausibly before all my muscles turned into peanut butter. Then I just lay there breathing as shallowly as I could manage, wondering why my left…why my stump didn’t seem to hurt enough. I hated to look a gift horse in the mouth; the psychological burden was quite heavy enough, thanks. But it made me uneasy.
I began composing a square-dance tune in time to the throbbing of my ribs. The room reeled to it, slightly out of synch at first but then so rhythmically that it actually seemed to stumble when the snare-drummer out in the hall muffed a paradiddle. The music stopped, but the drummer staggered on off-rhythm, faint at first but getting louder. Footsteps.
It had to be Carlson.
He was making a hell of a racket. Feverishly I envisioned him dragging a bazooka into the room and lining it up on me. Crazy. A flyswatter would have more than sufficed. But what the hell was he carrying then?
The answer came through the doorway: a large carton filled with things that clanked and rattled. Close behind it came Wendell Morgan Carlson himself, and it was as well that the square-dance music had stopped—the acceleration of my pulse would have made the tune undanceable. My nostrils tried to flare around the plugs, and the hair on the back of my neck might have bristled in atavistic reflex if there hadn’t been a thousand pounds of head lying on it.
The Enemy!
He had no weapons visible. He looked much older than his picture on the Carlson Poster—but the craggy brow, thin pinched nose and high cheeks were unmistakable, even if the lantern jaw was obscured by an inordinate amount of gray beard. He was a bit taller than I had pictured him, with more hair and narrower shoulders. I hadn’t expected the pot belly. He wore baggy jeans and a plaid flannel shirt, both ineptly patched here and there, and a pair of black sandals.
His face held more intelligence than I like in an antagonist—he would not be easy to fool. Wendell who? Never heard of him. Just got back from Pellucidar myself, and I was wondering if you could tell me where all the people went? Sorry I took a shot at you, and oh, yeah, thanks for cutting off my arm; you’re a brick.
He put the carton down on an ancient brown desk, crushing a faded photograph of someone’s children, turned at once to meet my gaze and said an incredible thing.
“I’m sorry I woke you.”
I don’t know what I’d expected. But in the few fevered moments I’d had to prepare myself for this moment, my first exchange of words with Wendell Morgan Carlson, I had never imagined such an opening gambit. I had no riposte prepared.
“You’re welcome,” I croaked insanely, and tried to smile. Whatever it was I actually did seemed to upset him; his face took on that look of concern I had glimpsed once before—when? Yesterday? How long had I been here?
“I’m glad you are awake,” he went on obligingly. “You’ve been unconscious for nearly a week.” No wonder I felt constructed-of-inferior-materials. I decided I must be a pretty tough mothafucka. It was nice to know I wasn’t copping out.
“What’s in the box?” I asked, with a little less fuzz-tone.
“Box?” He looked down. “Oh yes, I thought…you see, it’s intravenous feeding equipment. I studied the literature, and I…” he trailed off. His voice was a reedy but pleasant alto, with rustling brass edges. He appeared unfamiliar with its use.
“You were going to…” An ice cube formed in my bowels. Needle into sleeping arm, suck my life from a tube; have a hit of old Isham. Steady boy, steady.
“Perhaps it might still be a good idea,” he mused. “All I have to offer you at the moment is bread and milk. Not real milk of course…but then you could have honey with the bread. I suppose that’s as good as glucose.”
“Fine with me, Doctor,” I said hastily. “I have a thing about needles.” And other sharp instruments. “B
ut where do you get your honey?”
He frowned quizzically. “How did you know I have a Ph.D.?”
Think quick. “I didn’t. I assumed you were a Healer. It was you who amputated my arm?” I kept my voice even.
His frown deepened, a striking expression on that craggy face. “Young man,” he said reluctantly, “I have no formal medical training of any sort. Perhaps your arm could have stayed on—but it seemed to me…” He was, to my astonishment, mortally embarrassed.
“Doctor, it needed extensive cutting the last time I saw it, and I’m sure it got worse while I was under. Don’t…worry about it. I’m sure you did the best you could.” If he was inclined to forget my attempt to blow his head off, who was I to hold a grudge? Let bygones be bygones—I didn’t need a new reason to kill him.
“I read all I could find on field amputation,” he went on, still apologetic, “but of course I’d never done one before.” On anything smaller than a race. I assured him that it looked to me like a textbook job. It was inexpressibly weird to have this man seek my pardon for saving my life when I planned to take his at the earliest possible opportunity. It upset me, made me irritable. My wounds provided a convenient distraction, and I moved enough to justify a moan.
Carlson was instantly solicitous. From his cardboard carton he produced a paper package which, torn open, revealed a plastic syringe. Taking a stoppered jar from the carton, he drew off a small amount of clear fluid.
“What’s that?” I said, trying to keep the suspicion from my voice.
“Demerol.”
I shook my head. “No, thanks, Doc. I told you I don’t like needles.”
He nodded, put down the spike and took another object from the carton. “Here’s oral Demerol, then. I’ll leave it where you can reach it.” He put it on a bedside table. I picked up the jar, gave it a quick glance. It said it was Demerol. I could not break the seal around the cap with one hand—Carlson had to open it for me. Thank you, my enemy. Weird, weird, weird! I palmed a pill, pretending to swallow it. He looked satisfied.
By Any Other Name Page 34
