Johannes was silent for a long time when I told him the Great Khan’s promise. The whole court waited. At last he turned away and looked at Nataree. She nodded, with one slow movement of her head, and closed her eyes as though in prayer.
Johannes looked back at the Great Khan. “I would like,” he said. He paused, and his voice straightened. “I would like to take this woman, Nataree. I ask that you allow us to travel freely, she and I, through your territories, toward the rising sun and beyond, on to the end of the world to seek true knowledge.”
Everyone was silent, waiting for a translation. My heart was a lump of stone. I had to pass on those words, but it was too much for me. I stood, tongue-tied, until at last one of the merchants chimed in to translate what Johannes had said.
Then the Great Khan frowned. “Nataree?” he said. He looked at Johannes in incomprehension.
An old adviser came forward and whispered something in his ear. Kublai Khan nodded, but he looked no less astonished. He stepped closer to Johannes.
“Honored guest, you have saved my life. For far less than you have done, a hundred women would be yours. That gift is not sufficient. The woman Nataree is nothing to me—why should she be, when I never saw her before today? Ask again, and ask more, much more, or you will shame me as the Great Khan of the Tartars.”
Again the merchant translated for Johannes, and at last he nodded. This was it, surely, the moment when he would ask for the answers to all our questions. But he did not. Instead, he moved to Nataree’s side, put his arm around her—and turned to point at me!
“That young man” (a man at last! But how bitter the feeling) “is Dari. He is as dear to me as my own life. He has no parents, no family. Would you take him, Great Khan, and give him a home and an education here, in Karakorum?”
The Great Khan stared at me while the request was translated, and I felt a shiver from top to toe.
“Come here,” he said at last. “Come close.”
I walked forward, and began to kneel before him. He caught my arm in a grip that could have broken it, and would not allow me to sink to the floor. Before I knew what was happening, he pulled me close and kissed me on the forehead, then on both cheeks. He looked around him.
“Dari belongs here,” he said. “From this day he is not Dari, he is Dari Mangu, and he is a member of my own family.” And then he went on—the thing that made the whole court gasp aloud: “Dari Mangu is my son, as much as any of my sons. Like them, he is in the line of succession to become the Emperor, next ruler of Karakorum, the Great Khan of the Tartars. Come, all of you, and offer loyalty and obeisance.”
Man after man came forward.
I stood there quaking, the smell of dung still strong upon me, while promises of love and servitude poured into my ears. After half a minute, I began to weep.
That was one year ago. The snows have come again to Karakorum, but Johannes and Nataree have not returned. They went off to the east, to the great sea and beyond.
I think about them always. Did Johannes find a faith, I wonder, somewhere in the breathing world, to replace what he lost long ago in Magdeburg? Did Nataree show him, as she promised, all the kingdoms of the earth?
I do not know.
I thought that Nataree was a witch-woman when first I met her, and I think she is a witch-woman still. But now I suspect that every woman is a witch-woman, casting their spells on men.
I do not hate Nataree, but I resent her greater freedom. Even as a gift-girl to the Great Khan, she could do what I could not. When she held those long, intense conversations with Johannes as we traveled from the Great Desert to Karakorum, she surely fell in love with him. That was easy to do. But having fallen, she could then speak her love. Whereas I…
I could not, because he would not allow it. The Holy Church of Johannes told him that love from me was anathema, a mortal sin, a love so forbidden that it was wrong even to say its name.
I was trapped. I loved, as much as she, perhaps more than she, but I could not speak without making him feel revulsion.
And so I live on, in the court of the Great Khan. I have power, I have luxury, I have influence. Perhaps one day I will in truth become the Great Khan, Emperor, Lord of the Tartars, ruler of Karakorum and of half the known world.
Power, glory, honor, possessions. Those are all mine. They feel like nothing. Nothing but waiting, waiting, until the convergence of the Great Arcs at last brings its own peace.
It was right for Johannes to leave his old Church, with its cold Christ, its stern laws, its bleak Heaven. There was nothing there for him, nothing for anyone who loves.
But if he had to leave that church, why could he not have left it for me?
Afterword to “Beyond the Golden Road”
Susan Shwartz, the editor of the book in which this story first appeared, shares with me an interest (better call it an obsession) in the Taklamakan Desert of western China. When she was putting Arabesques together she asked me to write something using that general part of the world, creating a romantic tale somewhere between Persia and Mongolia.
I protested, “But I just sold a story like that, ‘The Courts of Xanadu,’ to Gardner Dozois at Asimov’s magazine!”
She said, “So that proves you can do it.”
I, recognizing superior guile, retreated and wrote “Beyond the Golden Road.”
Reviewers of Arabesques did not know what to make of my story. The rest of the book was populated by djinni, houris, demons, phoenixes, rocs, viziers, caravanserai, and all the other mainstays of the Arabian Nights. The other stories were clearly high fantasy. On the other hand, “Beyond the Golden Road” is pure science fiction. I do not know of one word in it that goes beyond what was known or believed about 1250 A.D. For example, the Liber Abaci of Leonardo of Pisa, better known as Fibonacci, appeared in 1202 and explained the virtues of the Arabic system of numeration when compared with roman numerals. In the next half century it achieved wide acceptance among the mathematicians of Europe.
In the main, reviewers of the book ignored my story. This rather annoyed me, because for one thing I was very fond of it, and for another I had found it difficult to write. The narrator’s character was a hard one to define, plus he had to tell everything he heard while not understanding a good deal of it.
Long after the story was published, a medium-level friend (defined as one I would willingly share lunch or dinner with, but not a hotel room at a convention) read it and said to me, “I didn’t know you were gay.”
Nor did I. But that remark at last made up for any reviewer neglect. Dari was what I had hoped he would be.
Health Care System
THOMAS MATLOCK DROVE out to the Greenwood estate one foggy morning in late December. Money was the bait, but curiosity was initially a stronger lure.
It was three days after Christmas, and the roads were almost deserted. The limousine wound its way up to the highest point of the Catoctin State Park, then began a cautious descent over roads treacherous with moisture and patches of ground ice. At Matlock’s request, the car slowed at an overlook when they were still a mile and a half from the estate. He lowered the window and peered out. The valley below was covered in dense ground mist, but the four wings of the mansion jutted high above it, light gray stone and steep slate roofs. Matlock inspected all that he could see and guessed at the rest. Five hundred acres of land inside the nine-foot fence, maybe another thousand outside it. A hundred-plus rooms to the house. Four gatehouses and guest “cottages,” each one bigger than Matlock’s own suburban villa.
Matlock breathed deep, inhaling the clear mountain air. At least a million dollars a year in upkeep down there, according to the rumor mills. But that was less than a quarter of the interest, according to those same mills, on Miriam Greenwood’s estate. Lifestyles of the rich and reclusive.
He finally nodded. “All right. Anytime.”
The car nosed forward, down the long slope and on until it came to heavy steel grilles that swung half-open at an electronic signal f
rom the driver. A uniformed guard walked forward, peered in, checked Thomas Matlock against something he held in his hand, and signaled to open the gates the rest of the way. The car moved on inside the fence, proceeding toward the main house at a sedate ten miles an hour.
Security procedures were stricter inside. Three guards waited there. Matlock had to produce his hospital ID, and watch while his fingerprints were checked electronically. At last he was allowed in through a second set of doors, saw his TV image matched to a stored template on a color screen, and could finally walk on to inspect Miriam Greenwood’s private domain.
The entrance to the mansion had kept its original appearance, oak-paneled walls and polished floors of black-and-white square tiles. Expensive rugs dotted the forty-by-forty expanse. Matlock and his two escorts passed over them, traversed a short, dark corridor, and came to the transition. Decor moved from early twentieth century dry rot to modern sterile; no carpets; walls tiled as well as floors. They walked on. The room that Thomas Matlock was finally ushered into was as antiseptic and lacking in character as any lab at the hospital.
Miriam Greenwood was sitting in an electric wheelchair, behind a desk furnished with a clock, a pad of paper, and a single telephone. She differed from her pictures in only two minor respects: the sparse gray hair was covered with a soft woolen skullcap, and she was not smoking a cigarette. She inclined her head to Matlock, inviting him to sit on the chair opposite.
“Five thousand dollars were deposited in your bank account when you entered the door of this house.” Miriam Greenwood’s voice was rusty, but still strong. She inclined her head again, this time toward the telephone. “Check, if you wish to do so. Otherwise, we can proceed to business.”
“It is not necessary to check.”
“I agree. That deposit was designed only to capture your attention.” Greenwood sat up straighter. “So watch, and wait.”
She pressed a control in the arm of the wheelchair. There was a delay of maybe half a minute, then a door to Matlock’s left opened. A woman in a nurse’s uniform looked through.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“I would like orange juice. For me, and also my visitor.”
“Yes, ma’am.” She nodded, and retreated.
Miriam Greenwood gestured at the clock. “Twenty-nine seconds. Adequate. Two seconds better than usual. On the other hand, this is the day shift. Response is slower at night.”
Thomas Matlock kept his face expressionless. “I’ve done timing comparisons at the hospital. The mean time between a call and a nurse’s response to it is eighteen minutes. Twenty-three minutes at night.”
“But your patients are not promised fast, exclusive, twenty-four hour, continuous care. That’s what I’m paying for.” A thin hand lifted and stabbed a finger at Matlock. “And I’m not getting it! Twenty-nine seconds. A person could die in that much time. I’ve had two heart attacks already. Who knows when there might be another one?”
She paused and checked the desk clock again, when the nurse reappeared and placed full glasses and a pitcher of orange juice on the desk. As the nurse was leaving, Greenwood gestured to the two men behind Thomas Matlock. “I’ll signal you if I need you. Stay close.”
She picked up a glass, took one tiny sip, and waited until the others were out of the room. “Forty-four seconds, from the order for orange juice until its appearance. More than a minute from the time I first called. Do you think the response would have been any quicker if I were seriously ill? I can answer that for you. It wouldn’t.”
Miriam Greenwood leaned forward. The lines on each side of her mouth deepened. “Dr. Matlock, I’m eighty-nine years old. I’m fragile. I’m going to die someday. You know that, I know that, and I don’t expect miracles. But I’m going to fight like hell for every second. There’s no way I’ll die sooner than I have to. And I’ve studied the statistics. Get to a trauma patient soon enough, and their survival chances go up dramatically.”
“They do. But I’ve never heard of a health care system with a mean service time of less than a minute. What you have is incredibly good.”
“It may be. It’s the best that money can buy. But it’s not good enough.”
“I don’t see how you could get a better one.”
“You can build me one.” Greenwood’s withered lips offered a faint smile. “Ah, you don’t think you can, eh? But listen to me.” She paused for a long, shallow breath. “Give me five minutes of your time.”
“You bought four hours of it.”
“I want to buy more than that. Hear me out.” She touched one of the controls on her wheelchair, and the back moved to a deeper reclining angle. “One nice thing about having a bit of money, people come to you, instead of you having to go to them. Now, you might think that must be to my advantage, but funnily enough, it’s not. Not always. One month ago, the director of your hospital called, to tell me that the new wing I’d financed was going to be opened, and would I like to be there for the ceremony. I hadn’t left this building for over a year, because my doctors were advising against it. But I decided I was going. I didn’t know why. I think my subconscious did. All my life I’ve played hunches. I said I was going, and I told Ronson—my head doctor—to shut up. If I dropped dead while I was out, that would be my own dumb fault. So they wheeled me out, and they propped me up in the limo, and took me down to Georgetown.” She sighed, the weak, chesty sigh of a sixty-year smoker. “I saw the new wing, but I saw more than that. I saw the equipment in the wing. And I saw OPEC—the On-line Patient Experimental Clinic. Your own lab. Telemetry feeds, direct from patient to computer. Feedback within ten milliseconds.”
Greenwood lifted her head, and chuckled at the expression on Matlock’s face. “That’s it. Finally know why you’re here, don’t you? If you could do it for them, you could do it for me.”
But Thomas Matlock was shaking his head. “You only saw the director’s demonstration project. It’s based on my lab, but it’s bogus.”
Miriam Greenwood creaked upright. “Bogus?” Her voice was no more than a thin whisper. “Are you saying Livingstone set out to fool me? If he did…”
“No, no. Not the way you think.” Thomas Matlock saw a vision of wealth appear and disappear. He didn’t want that. “The telemetry feeds from the patient to the computer are near-instantaneous, just the way you said, and the computer analysis of patient condition takes only a few milliseconds. But a physician always approves the treatment before it’s given. The director cut that step out of the demo to make it go faster and used cases where approval for treatment had already been given. So it wasn’t so much bogus—I shouldn’t have used that word—it was oversimplified.”
“Ah.” Miriam Greenwood was relaxing again in her chair, eyes closed. “I see. But it wouldn’t have to work that way.”
“Really, it would.”
“You said the computer does the analysis, the computer decides the treatment. So cut out the physician, and the computer could start a treatment in a couple of heartbeats. Ronson’s a pretty good doctor, but he’ll never compete with a computer for speed. Use on-line feedback of medication. You know how to do it, build an expert system that incorporates the best medical knowledge in the world into the computer code. And you can hook up all your sensors directly to me—permanently, if you have to. Hell, I live in this damned chair. The catheters and sensors could be built right into the seat and arms.”
“No.” Matlock hesitated. “We couldn’t do that,” he said at last. “You see, a physician has to be there—physically present—to give approval before treatment begins. It’s illegal any other way.”
“Ah. Illegal.” Miriam Greenwood sighed, and her dark eyes blinked open. “Is that all? I thought for a horrible moment you were going to tell me it wasn’t feasible.”
Thomas Matlock rolled down his car window and waited patiently as the ID checks were performed. Even though the guards all knew exactly who he was, and why he was here, it made no difference. They went through the whole nine yards with him ea
ch time.
“Thanks, Jack. Be back in a few hours.” He grinned at the guard as he was finally waved through. The man wasn’t to blame. He was reflecting Miriam Greenwood’s personal paranoia. Matlock drove his Lamborghini up to the circular driveway, parked, and submitted cheerfully to the second set of identification checks before he was allowed in.
To an outside observer, the changes in the past year had been negligible. Miriam Greenwood sat in the same chair, in the same study. A compact box, located under the wheelchair seat in the same place as the batteries, was the only visible addition. Greenwood herself was a little thinner, a little frailer. She nodded at Matlock as he moved to sit across from her.
“You said I’d reach the point where I wouldn’t even notice it happening, and I think we’re almost there.”
“Let’s take a look.” Matlock whipped his hand toward her eyes, stopping a couple of inches short. She flinched, then nodded. “There it is. I don’t feel a thing, but if you listen hard you can hear the pump starting. It’s balancing the adrenaline now. The whole thing is perfect.”
Matlock nodded and waited. By now he knew Miriam Greenwood.
“Or nearly perfect,” she went on. “I was talking yesterday on the telephone to Livingstone, over at Georgetown, and he mentioned there’s a new drug, xanthyl, being used as a beta-blocker. I queried the computer here”—a minute nod downward to the base of the wheelchair—“and there’s no mention of it. Ronson had never heard of it, either.”
“There’s a good reason for that.” Matlock shrugged. “Xanthyl is being used in European tests, but it’s not yet FDA-approved. Most online databases don’t have it in them, because it might be dangerous.”
“Or it might be a lifesaver.”
“I can’t take that sort of risk.”
“What risk? I haven’t asked you to do anything yet.”
Georgia On My Mind and Other Places Page 17
