by John Stith
Cal thought briefly about examining the location where Domingo’s body had been found, but decided against it. He was near exhaustion, and the police might still be watching the area.
He managed to stay awake on the tubeway. Along the path to his house, he could feel his stomach muscles tense as he thought about Nikki. What more could he say to her without first learning more about himself? Nikki was still almost a stranger.
He had worried for nothing. Nikki was gone.
Cal wondered at first if she had moved out. He checked the computer for messages and found one from her, recorded about two hours earlier. The message was brief. She said simply, “I’ve been called in, Cal. I’m not sure how late I’ll be.” She hesitated for an instant, as though wanting to add something more. Then her face was gone from the screen.
Despite his fatigue, Cal replayed the message. He found the speed controls and paused Nikki’s image. Her tired but quizzical expression held the suggestion of concern, her dark eyes looking straight ahead, focused precisely. Cal reached out to her image. Maybe she could help him discover what was going on. As he lost himself for a moment, staring at her, the distrust he had felt earlier dissipated. After a last long look, he turned off the computer.
“Vincent, I’m going to bed. Will you wake me in six hours?”
“With soft music or a police siren?”
“How about a simple, ‘Wake up’?”
“Boring.”
“Vincent, are there any newer models than you? Ones that might obey a little better?”
“There are several competitors on the market,” Vincent said stiffly.
Cal settled onto the bed slowly. “Vincent?” he said a moment later. “Are you still awake?”
“You mean am I still talking to you?”
“I don’t need a new model. You’re doing just fine.”
“Thanks.”
“And, Vincent. Anything but sirens.”
“A-Okay.”
In dreams, Lynn was not so far away as in the day. She was alive and happy, playing nearby with a small gyroscopic toy, watching it rotate every two minutes, her expression animated.
“I’ve got another toy for you, Lynn,” Cal said.
His daughter looked at him eagerly.
“It’s down here,” he added. “Come with me.”
He took her hand. They left the brightly lit room and walked along a long, dark hallway toward a second room. Light shone from behind the partially open door. Cal opened the door wide, and they stepped inside.
“What is it, Daddy?” the girl asked.
It was a clear, shining, hollow sphere.
“Just watch,” Cal said, and split the sphere into two halves. “Hop inside.”
Obediently Lynn did so. Cal closed the two halves together.
“Now you can roll it wherever you like,” Cal called, louder now to reach through the shell.
Lynn rolled the sphere, first one way and then the other, laughing as she tumbled unexpectedly. She rolled in a new direction.
For several minutes she laughed and played, but Cal could see that she was tiring. Why hadn’t he thought of that? Soon she stopped. “Daddy,” she said. “I don’t feel well.”
Of course. The air was getting stale. Cal would simply separate the two halves of the sphere and free her.
But where was the seam now? Cal’s hands moved frantically over the surface, searching for the hairline gap. It had to be there.
“Please let me out,” she said. Fear tightened her features.
“I’m getting it, Lynn,” he said, trying not to let her hear the panic in his voice.
She fell back, her eyes beginning to lose focus. “I feel dizzy.”
He had to hurry. But it was as though the seam had somehow sealed itself, and wherever his fingers touched they felt only the smooth, unbroken surface.
Dear God, what could have happened? How could he have been so stupid? Lynn lay in the bottom of the sphere, breathing painfully.
“I’ll find a way,” he called. “Don’t give up.”
Where could it be? His fingers grew hot from moving so quickly against the surface. He thought for a moment that he’d found the seam, but it was just a hair.
He looked back at Lynn. Her face had darkened, her eyes closed. She stopped breathing.
“Lynn!” he screamed, and kicked at the sphere once, then harder, again and again and again. “Lynn!”
“Cal,” said a voice. But from where? Out in the hall? Cal looked back toward the door and saw nothing. The voice called again. “Cal.”
This time the walls faded from view, and the sphere with Lynn’s body inside vanished.
“Cal,” Vincent called again. “Wake up.”
Cal bolted upright in bed. The room was dark and hot, but his body felt chilled, sweaty. He was alone in the bed. He shuddered violently and squeezed his eyes shut tightly against the pain.
“I’m awake, Vincent,” he said finally. “Thanks.” Cal’s mouth felt as dry as his body was damp. “God.”
“I wasn’t sure if I should wake you, but you sounded terrified.”
“You did the right thing. Haven’t you—” Cal stopped, realizing that in the past Vincent would have been turned off while Cal slept.
“You dreamed about your daughter?”
“Yes.” Cal thought a moment. “What time is it?”
“Oh five hundred.”
There was no way he could go back to sleep.
A hot shower soothed the muscles that had stiffened during the night. It would have felt even better, but he still saw Lynn’s eyes, imploring him to help.
His fresh clothes on, he discarded yesterday’s. At first he thought nothing of the fact that the hamper was empty, but then he realized the implications. In all the activity of the day before, he had forgotten about the bloody clothes. And the capsules.
Nikki must have found the clothes. What would she think about the blood, and the capsules? Moments later he located the clothes in the washer, still bloody. Maybe he shouldn’t have left the capsules in the pocket. He wondered about the penalty associated with them. Was it enforced for confirmed trafficking, or for mere possession?
“Nikki’s still not back,” said Cal. “I wonder where she is.”
“You could call her.”
“Maybe later.” If Nikki was still out at 05:30, she probably didn’t need a call right then.
The full weight of yesterday’s experiences began to press in on Cal again. The nightmare with Lynn was a clear indication of at least one pressure he had been under: guilt. Was that the key to his apparently irrational recent behavior, or was there more to it than that?
There must be some way he could stimulate more rapid memory recovery. What other functions on the computer might help? He sat in front of the keyboard and paged to the general information menu.
“What does ‘Earth Telescope’ mean, Vincent?”
“There’s a large telescope outside that’s no longer in full-time use for astronomy. For five minutes at a time, anyone can use it. Most of the time the peek freaks point it at Earth, and it’s equipped to track a point on the surface.”
Could he bear to look at Atlanta? Would it be worth the pain to retrieve more memories that way? He hesitated only briefly before selecting the option. The odds that Atlanta was facing Daedalus right now and was clear of clouds weren’t great. Maybe he could look elsewhere.
Atlanta was out of sight, so he arbitrarily chose Paris. The image from a spotting scope came up on the screen, showing an area of perhaps twenty kilometers in diameter. The air over Paris was clear, and by the westerly shadows, it was morning. To the left the Eiffel Tower caught his attention, so he moved the cursor to it and zoomed the image.
From this angle, the Left Bank was on the right. The image grew, and the Seine moved off the screen to the northwest. The tower filled half the screen. It seemed to lean northwest because of the latitude and time of day. A flock of birds flew by, and, as his gaze followed their course
, he noticed a motionless shape on the ground.
It could only be a skeleton. The resolution of the image was not great enough to see the details, but the form was too narrow to be someone sleeping. Had the poor soul died right there with no notice, or deliberately gone there to die?
It was just as well that the telescope’s resolution was apparently deliberately limited. He had seen enough. He knew that he had observed Atlanta before, looked at the campus, looked at the old apartment building where his parents had lived and died.
He remembered that last excruciating phone call, two minutes scheduled in the middle of the night, limited because of the overhead of calls going between the living on Daedalus and the dying on Earth. Everyone wanted to talk for the one last time. So each family got two minutes when the time came. How can a person say enough in two final minutes?
Only after he had been in college for a couple years had he finally realized how much he respected his parents. Why hadn’t he been able to talk to them sooner? It had taken him far too long to realize that his father’s gruff manner was simply his manner of defense. Cal swallowed hard.
He looked back at the top of the tower. Since the image had first come on the screen, the tower had shifted with the Earth’s rotation just enough to perceive. The tower now pointed closer to east-west vertical, but still leaned northward. The Earth spun slowly in its grave. As he watched, the image was cleared from the screen, replaced by a message saying his time limit had expired.
About to leave the console, Cal hesitated. Yesterday he had examined his financial transaction log to see if he had paid money to Forget-Me-Now any previous time. There hadn’t been a prior entry during the last month, but what about earlier?
He recalled the log and began to search backward. Two months before, there was still no mention. None at three months, but something else puzzled him. There was another debit without a name attached.
Cal scanned several months, and the pattern became obvious. Near the tenth of every month, there had been a withdrawal from his account, every month for almost a year. The amount was always the same: a significant sum, but not enough to hurt him very much. This wasn’t simply carelessness in keeping his log current. But he had no idea whom he had paid. Or why.
The most recent entries told him something else. It was approximately a month since the last payment. Was he making blackmail payments to an anonymous someone? Perhaps someone he knew but didn’t want a public link with. If so, for what? Maybe he reached the state he was in because he failed to make a payment a day or two ago.
A second possibility chilled him. Suppose Gabriel Domingo was blackmailing him. It wasn’t difficult to imagine the scene.
“You’re not going to pay me?” Domingo would say.
“No.”
“Okay. You had your chance. I’m going to have a short chat with the police. Nikki is going to be very disappointed.” Domingo would begin to leave.
“No, you won’t do that,” Cal might say.
And now there was one explanation for a dead Domingo and a bloody Cal. It couldn’t be possible. Or could it?
Cal forced away the disturbing possibilities. Maybe Angel, whoever he or she was, could help, if only he could locate Angel.
“Vincent,” he said, reaching a decision. “Can I send a message through you to my work computer and have it relayed?”
“Shoot.”
“The message is ‘I need to talk to you.’” Cal explained about the code name.
“How do you want to sign it?”
“Don’t. I’m not sure why I’ve been using code names, but I’d better play safe. If Angel gets so many messages with code names that he doesn’t know it’s from me, then he might not be much help anyway. I’m not going to know what Krantz is talking about this afternoon if I don’t learn some more at the office.”
Nikki still had not returned. Cal vacillated about leaving a message for her and decided against it. He didn’t know what more to say.
Morning light that Cal hadn’t noticed earlier streamed through the windows as he left the house. The light reduced his depression just a little.
Almost a third of the tube car seats were occupied, and at the next stop a few more people entered. A young man with a mustache took one of the seats beside Cal, but Cal made no effort to start a conversation. Cal wondered idly if he was snubbing people he normally rode to work with.
More passengers entered at the next few stops, and soon the tube car was almost full. Cal glanced at the status panel. What would Nikki be doing right now?
That was funny. The status panel turned red. Still puzzled at the color change, he became aware of the unexpected odor of mint leaves, and a moment later he was sure he smelled fresh rain.
His neck and shoulders began to tingle, and suddenly his face felt hot. The lights in the tube car flickered, or his vision was playing tricks on him. What was happening?
“Vincent,” he began to say, stopping for no apparent reason. His vision cleared, and, just as he thought he was all right, a burning pain in his chest made him cry out. He couldn’t breathe. He needed air, but his lungs refused to obey him. Cramps in his stomach doubled him over, and he fell heavily to the floor.
His legs and body stiffened, and his face contorted in agony. Just when he felt as if his head would explode, he was able to suck in a large breath of air. Gasping, he felt his body begin to undergo rhythmic contractions. His outflung elbow hit a chair support so hard, he thought he must surely have cracked the bone. He felt pain in his mouth, and a strong, liquid, salty taste.
He tried to call to Nikki or Vincent, but couldn’t. Hands grabbed his arms, restraining him. Despite the help, his head whipped violently back, connecting with the floor, and mercifully he lost consciousness.
At first all he heard were fragments of a soft conversation in the background, most of the words unintelligible. “Idiopathic epilepsy,” someone said, and the conversation faded again.
Cal tried to speak, but pain in his swollen tongue cut off his attempt.
“So you’re awake,” a soft male voice said.
Cal opened his eyes and squinted against the light.
“I’m Dr. Bartum,” the voice continued, now associated with a round-faced, middle-aged man standing next to the bed. “You’re in the Taber Clinic. How much do you remember?”
Cal choked back a laugh. So he was in the clinic where Nikki wanted him. “I remember being in the tube car,” he said with difficulty. His tongue must be swollen. “And having some kind of seizure, I guess.”
“Good. We could see no indications of brain damage on your scans, but you bit your tongue quite hard and knocked yourself around a bit. Your wife should be here soon. She went off duty about half an hour before we realized the connection.”
“What happened to me?”
“Medical terms, all that kind of thing? Something rare, actually. Ever hear of epilepsy? I know your record says you have no history. No, I suppose not. You apparently experienced a grand mal, an epileptic seizure. Can you tell me exactly what you felt?”
“It’s all a little confused, but I’ll try.” Cal told him what he could remember about the seizure itself and the sensory precursors.
Dr. Bartum grew thoughtful, no doubt curious about seldom-seen diseases, as Cal spoke. He seemed about to speak when the door opened.
“Cal,” said Nikki. “I came as quickly as I could.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll leave you two for now,” Bartum said. “But I’d like to talk to you before you leave, Mr. Donley.”
Cal nodded, more interested in Nikki. She touched his hand, and Bartum retreated.
“How are you,” she asked. She seemed genuinely concerned, not just pretending.
“Okay, I guess. But I feel a lot better seeing you.” Cal heard the distortion in his voice, but his tongue was too sore to avoid it.
Nikki averted her gaze, as though if Cal’s condition had been less severe, she wouldn’t have come.
“Th
is has never happened to me before, has it?” he asked.
“Never. I checked on the symptoms on the way over. Attacks are sometimes triggered by strong emotions.” Cal noticed her wristcomp for the first time. It was slightly smaller than Vincent.
“You don’t look much better than I imagine I do,” he said.
“Transplant operations don’t always pick convenient times. I’m exhausted.”
“Thanks for coming. At least I’m where you wanted me.”
“I think you should stay here a few days and recuperate. I don’t want you trying to get out of here by tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? What time is it?”
“A little before eleven. You’ve been out for a few hours.”
“I’ve got an appointment after lunch.”
“You can’t be serious. After all this? Cal, don’t push yourself so hard. You may be here because of that. Besides, you’ve still got some explaining to do.”
“Such as?”
“Such as the clothes you left at home.” She looked at him sternly.
“Oh.” Cal was silent for a moment. “You took the capsules, right?”
“Yes. They’re being analyzed.”
“By someone you trust?” Damn. “They’re probably Vital Twenty-Two.”
Nikki sat down. “Maybe I can keep her quiet.” Her dark eyes scanned Cal’s face, her gaze shifting in small, rapid motions. “I want to know the rest.”
Cal told her about waking up on the hillside above Machu Picchu wearing bloody clothes, and about the capsules in his pocket. He mentioned what Vincent had told him, and what he’d heard on the news. “But there has to be more to it than that. I can’t believe I’m guilty,” he finished. “Can you?”
“I don’t know what to think. You’ve changed, especially since Lynn died. And the last couple of months, you’ve been tense and uncommunicative, snapping at me, gone at all hours. Maybe you’ve just given way under the pressure. That doesn’t make it a crime. Just a sickness.” Nikki’s expression grew sadder as she spoke.
Cal wasn’t sure that was a whole lot better. He sat up slowly. “I’m not sick, Nikki. There’s more happening here than you or I understand. I just know it.”
