But out of all this, one element still made no sense. In this society, all zygotes were developed and preserved by the Fountain, a purely artificial process.
Parsons chose his words carefully. "This man," he said to Loris. "Your father. Was he born at the Fountain?"
Both she and Helmar regarded him with equal caution. "No one is born outside the Fountain," Loris said in a low voice.
Helmar, with impatience, said, "What does such information have to do with your work? We have complete data on his physical condition at the time of his death. It's his death that's germane to you, not his birth."
"Who built the cube?" Parsons demanded bluntly.
"Why?" Loris said, almost inaudibly. She glanced at Helmar.
"The design," Helmar explained slowly, "is the same as the Fountain the government operates. No special knowledge was required to duplicate on a small scale what the government operates on a large scale."
"Somebody brought schematics here and constructed all this," Parsons persisted. "Obviously at great risk, and for considerable purpose."
Loris said, "To preserve him. My father."
At once, Parsons pounced; he felt his pulse race. "Then the cube was built after his death?"
Neither of them answered.
"I don't see," Loris said finally, "what this has to do with your work. As Helmar says."
"I'm a hired employee, then?" Parsons said. "Not a genuine equal who can communicate with you as equals?"
Helmar glared at him, but Loris seemed more troubled than angry. Falteringly, she said, "No, not at all. It's just that the risk is so great. And it actually doesn't concern you, does it? Why should it, Doctor? When you treat a patient, a person who's sick or injured, do you inquire into his background, his beliefs, his purpose in life, his philosophy?"
"No," he admitted.
"We'll repay you," Loris said. "We can place you in any time period that you desire." Across the table from him, she smiled hopefully, coaxingly.
But Parsons said, "I have a wife whom I love. All I want to do is get back to her."
"That's so," Helmar said. "We noticed her while we were out scouting you."
"And knowing that," Parsons said, "you still brought me here, without my knowledge or permission. I gather that my personal feelings are of no concern to you." He hesitated. "In your estimation, I'm no better than a slave!"
"That's not true," Loris said. And he saw tears in her eyes. "You don't have to help us. You can go back to your own time if you want. It's your choice." Suddenly she rose from the table. "Excuse me," she said in a choked voice, and ran at once from the room.
Presently Helmar said, "You can sympathize with her feelings." He sat stoically sipping his coffee. "There's never been any chance before your coming. Let's acknowledge that you don't particularly care for me. But that's not the issue. You're not doing this for me. You're doing it for her."
The man had a point there.
And yet, even Loris had hung back, had not given him honest answers. The whole atmosphere was pervaded with this sense of the hidden, the concealed. Why from him? If they trusted him enough to show him the man in the cube, to reveal the cube itself, then what more could there be? Did they suppose that if he knew more about them, he would not co-operate?
He filed his suspicions away, and sat, like Helmar, sipping his coffee royal. Unobtrusively, servants came and departed.
Neither he nor Helmar said anything; they sipped in silence. The brandy was very good, an authentic cognac. At last Helmar put down his cup and stood up.
"Ready, Doctor?" he said. "To make your initial exploratory examination?"
Parsons, too, stood. "Yes," he said. "Let's go."
TEN
The three of them stood together, watching tensely as automatic machinery moved the cube forward, toward them. The cube came directly in front of them and stopped there.
The chamber was a blaze of lights. In the glare, Parsons watched the cube gradually tip backward until it came to rest. Within its depths the inert figure drifted quietly, eyes closed, body relaxed. The dead god, suspended between worlds, waiting to return . . .
And in the chamber, his people.
The chamber was crowded. Men who had stayed in the shadows until now were beginning to emerge. Parsons had not realized the extent of the project. He paused to take in the sight of this first appearance in real force, the actual strength that operated the Lodge.
Was it his imagination, or did they resemble one another? Of course, all members of this society had some similar characteristics, the same general skull formation and hair texture. And the clothing of this group was identical throughout, the gray robe and chest-emblem of the Wolf Tribe.
But there was more. The ruddy cast to the skin. A certain heaviness of the brow. Wide forehead. Flaring nostrils. As if they were of one family.
He counted forty men and sixteen women and then lost track. They were moving about, murmuring to one another. Taking places where they could watch him as he worked. They wanted to see every move he made.
Now the cube had been opened by Lodge technicians. The cold-pack was being sucked out greedily by plastic suction tendrils. In a moment the body would be exposed.
"These people shouldn't be here," Parsons said nervously. "I'll have to open his chest and plug in a pump. Danger of infection will be enormous."
The men and women heard him, but none of them budged.
"They feel they have a right to be here," Helmar said.
"But you people admittedly know nothing about medicine, about hygiene--"
"You worked on the girl Icara in public," Helmar said. "And you have numerous sterilizing agents in your case; we were able to identify them."
Parsons cursed under his breath. He turned away from Helmar and slid on his plastic protective gloves. Now he began arranging his instruments on a portable worktable. As the last of the cold-pack was drained off by the suction tendrils, Parsons flicked on a high-frequency field and placed the potentials on each side of the cube. The terminals hummed and glowed as the field warmed. Now the inert body was within a zone of bacteria-destroying radiation. He concentrated the field briefly on his instruments and gloves. The watching men and women took everything in without expression, faces blank with concentration.
Abruptly the cold-pack was gone. The body was exposed.
Parsons moved into activity. There had been no tangible decay. The body appeared perfectly fresh. He touched the lifeless wrist. It was cold. A chilling effluvium that trickled up his arm and made him quickly let go. The utter cold of outer space. He shivered and wondered how he was going to work.
"He will warm rapidly," Helmar grated. "It's no form of refrigeration you're familiar with. Molecular velocity has not been reduced. It has been differently phased."
The body was now warm enough to touch. Whatever alteration had been made in the vibrational pattern, the molecules were already beginning to return to their natural rate.
With scrupulous care, Parsons locked a mechanical lung in place and activated it. While the lung exerted rhythmic pressure on the immobile chest, he concentrated on the heart. He punctured the rib cage and plugged the Dixon pump into the vascular system, bypassing the suspended heart. The pump went immediately to work. Blood flowed. Both respiration and circulation resumed in this body that had died thirty-five years ago. Now, if there hadn't been much tissue deterioration from lack of oxygen and nutrition, especially in the brain . . .
Unnoticed, Loris had come over beside him, so that now her body pressed against him. Rigid as stone, she peered down.
"Instead of removing the arrow from the heart," Parsons said, "I have gone around the heart. Temporarily, at least." Now he inspected the injured organ itself.
The arrow had penetrated accurately. Probably there was little he could do to restore the organ. But, with the proper tool, he plucked the arrow out and tossed it to the floor. Blood oozed.
"It can be repaired," he said to Loris. "But the big question h
as to do with brain damage. If it's too great, I recommend that we destroy him." The alternative, letting him live, would not be pleasant.
"I see," she said in a stricken voice. No more than a whisper.
"In my opinion," Parsons said, addressing both her and the group, "we should proceed now."
"You mean try to revive him?" she said. He had to catch hold of her; she had begun to sway, and he saw that her eyes were almost blind with fear.
"Yes," he said. "May I?"
"Suppose you fail," she whispered, appealing to him.
"I have as much chance of success as I will ever have," he said frankly. "Every time he's revived, there will be some further deterioration of brain tissue."
"Then go ahead," she said in a stronger voice.
Helmar, behind them, said, "And don't fail." He did not say it as a threat; his voice had more a patently fanatical tone. As if, to him, failure simply could not occur; it was not possible.
Parsons said, "With the pump operating, he should revive very shortly." With instruments, he listened for pulse, for the man's breathing. That is, if he ever does, he thought to himself.
The man stirred. His eyelids fluttered.
A gasp came from the watchers. A simultaneous expression of amazement and joy.
"He is living by use of the mechanical pump," Parsons said to Loris. "Of course, if everything goes well--"
"Ultimately you will stitch the heart fiber and attempt to remove the pump," Loris finished.
"Yes," he said.
Loris said, "Doctor, would you please do that now? There are conditions that you know nothing about; please believe me when I say that if there's any possibility that you could perform the surgery on the heart at this time . . ." Pleadingly, she caught hold of his hands; he felt her strong fingers dig into his flesh. Gazing up at him she said, "For my sake. Even if there's more risk this way, I feel convinced that you should go ahead. I have good reasons. Please, Dr. Parsons."
Reluctantly, studying the pulse and respiration of the patient, he said, "He would have to mend over a period of weeks. You understand that. He can't take any strain, of any sort, until the fiber--"
"You'll do it?" she said, her eyes shining.
Assembling his instruments, he began the grueling task of repairing the ruptured heart.
When he had finished, he discovered that only Loris remained in the chamber; the others had been sent out, undoubtedly on her order. She sat silently across from him, her arms folded. Now she seemed more composed. But her face still had the rigidity, the fear.
"All right?" she said with a tremor.
"Evidently," he said. Exhausted, he started putting away his instruments.
"Doctor," she breathed, rising and approaching him, "you have done a profound thing. Not only for us, but for the world."
Too worn-out to pay much attention to her, he stripped off his gloves. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm too tired to talk. I'd like to go up to my apartment and go to bed."
"You'll be on call? If anything goes wrong?" As he started from the chamber, Loris hurried after him. "What should we watch for? We'll have attendants on hand at all times, of course . . . I realize that he's quite feeble, and will be for some time." Now she made him halt. "When will he be conscious?"
"Probably in an hour," he said, at the door.
That apparently satisfied her. Nodding in a preoccupied fashion, she started back to the patient.
By himself, he ascended the stairs, and, after getting the wrong room several times, at last managed to find his own apartment. Inside, he shut and locked the door and sank down on the bed to rest. He felt too weary to undress or get under the covers.
The next he knew, the door was open. Loris stood in the entrance, gazing down at him. The room had become dark-- or had he lain down with the light off? Groggily, he started to sit up.
"I thought you might want something to eat," she said. "It's after midnight." As she switched on a lamp and went over to pull the drapes, he saw that a servant had followed her into the apartment.
"Thanks," he said, rubbing his eyes.
Loris dismissed the servant and began lifting the pewter covers from the dishes. He could smell the warm, rich odors of food.
"Any change in your father?" he asked.
Loris said, "He became conscious for a moment. At least, he opened his eyes. And I had a distinct impression that he was aware of me. And then he went to sleep; he's sleeping now."
"He'll sleep a lot," Parsons said. But he thought, That may indicate possible brain damage.
She had arranged two chairs at a small table, and now she let him seat her. "Thank you," she said. "You put everything you had into what you did. Such an impressive spectacle for us to see--a doctor and his devotion to healing." She smiled at him; in the half-light of the room her lips were full and moist. Since he had last seen her she had changed to a different dress, and her hair, now, was tied back, held in place by a clasp. "You're a very good man," she said. "A very kind and worthy man. We're ennobled by your presence."
Embarrassed, he shrugged, not knowing what to say.
"I'm sorry to make you uncomfortable," she said. She began to eat, and he did so too. But after a few bites he realized that he was not hungry. Walking to the veranda of the apartment he opened the glass door and stepped outside, into the cold night air.
Luminous night moths fluttered beyond the railing, among the trees and moist branches. Somewhere in the forest small animals crashed about, growled, moved sullenly off. Sounds of breaking twigs, stealthy footpads. Hissing.
"Cats," Loris whispered. "Domestic cats." She had come out, too, to stand beside him in the darkness.
"Gone wild?"
She turned toward him. "You know, Doctor, there is a basic fallacy in their thinking."
"Who do you mean by 'they'?"
Waving her hand vaguely she said, "The government. The whole system, here. The Soul Cube, the Lists. That girl, Icara. The one you saved." Her voice became firm. "She killed herself because she had been disfigured. She knew she'd drag down the tribe when List time came. She knew she'd score badly because of her physical appearance. But such things aren't inherited!" Bitterness swept through her voice. "She sacrificed herself for nothing. Who gained? What good did her death do? She was certain it was for the benefit of the tribe--for the race. I've seen enough of death."
He knew, hearing her, that she was thinking about her father. "Loris," he said. "If you can go back into the past, why didn't you try to change it? Prevent his death?"
"You don't know what we know," she said. "The possibility of changing the past is limited. It's very hard." She sighed. "Don't you suppose we tried?" Her voice rose now. "Don't you think we went back again and again, trying to make it come out differently? And it never did."
"The past is immutable?" he said.
"We don't understand it, quite. Some things can be changed. But not this. Not the thing that matters! There's some kind of central force that eludes us. Some power working . . ."
"You really love him," he said, moved by her emotion.
She nodded faintly. Now he saw her hand lift; she wiped at her eyes. Dimly, he could make out her face, her trembling lips, long lashes, the great black eyes sparkling with tears.
"I'm sorry," Parsons said. "I didn't mean to--"
"It's all right. We've been under so much strain. For so long. You understand, I've never seen him alive. And, to look at him day after day, suspended in there, beyond reach--utterly remote from us. All the time, when I was a child, growing up, I thought of nothing else. To bring him back. To have him again, to possess him. If he could be made to live again--" Her hands opened, reached out, yearning, groping, closing again on nothing. "And now that we do have him back--" Abruptly, she broke off.
"Go on," Parsons prompted.
Loris shook her head and turned away. Parsons touched her soft black hair, moist with the night mist. She did not protest. He drew her close to him; still she did not protest. Her warm breath d
rifted up in a cloud, rising around him, mixing with the sweet scent of her hair. Against him her body vibrated, intense and burning with suppressed emotion. Her bosom rose and fell, outlined against the starlight, her body trembling under the silk of her robe.
His hand touched her cheek, then her throat. Her full lips were close to his. Her eyes were half-closed, head bent back, breath coming rapidly. "Loris," he said softly.
She shook her head. "No. Please, no."
"Why don't you trust me? Why don't you want to tell me? What is there you can't--"
With a convulsive moan she broke away and ran toward the doorway, robes fluttering after her.
Catching up with her, he put his arms around her, holding her from escaping. "What's the matter?" he said, trying to see her, trying to read the expression on her face. Wanting to make her look at him.
"I--" she began.
The door to the apartment flew open. Helmar, his face distorted, said, "Loris. He--" Seeing Parsons he said, "Doctor. Come."
They ran, the three of them, down the corridor to the stairs, down the stairs; gasping, they reached the room in which Loris' father lay. Attendants ushered them in. Parsons caught sight of elaborate equipment, unfamiliar to him, in the process of being assembled.
On the bed lay Loris' father, his lips parted, his eyes glazed. His eyes, sightless in death, stared up at the ceiling.
"Cold-pack," Loris was saying, somewhere in the background, as Parsons grabbed out his instruments.
Lifting aside the sheet, Parsons saw the feathered, notched end of an arrow protruding from the dead man's chest.
"Again," Helmar said, in a tone of absolute hopelessness. "We thought . . ." His voice trailed off, baffled and wretched. "Get the pack around him!" he shouted suddenly, and attendants pushed between Parsons and the bed. He saw them expertly lift the corpse and slide it into the vacant cube; cold-pack poured in and surrounded the form until it became blurred and obscured.
Dr. Futurity (1960) Page 8
