The Seventh Science Fiction Megapack
Page 33
“Dr. Rayburn wouldn’t talk with us,” Sherwood said. “Why should you?”
Cox looked at him squarely. “Because you are a friend of mine and Schlessenger be damned. You and Ginny spent many a night with us, Walter.”
Sherwood said warmly, “Well, I’m glad we’ve found two friends in Merrittville.”
Cox leaned forward. “You and I. we knew each other. We weren’t backbiters, and we weren’t always at each other’s throat. The rest of them out there are a bunch of sticks. Old Horse Face Rayburn doesn’t talk to anybody but his trichina. Sometimes he gives me the willies. Kitty won’t go near him. Black is almost as bad, just an Institute man with Schlessenger serving as his spinal column. Wilhelm and Heneberry are both new and younger, but they run when Schless says run and halt when he says halt. You and I were the only real research men out there. The rest are just window dressing for the National Science Foundation, so much payroll padding.”
“What about my work. Did you know anything about that?”
“Not much, Walt. We knew each other real well, but we didn’t discuss each other’s work very often. Yours wasn’t in my line and vice versa.”
“What’s your line?”
“Radioactive poisons.”
“And mine?”
“Brain stuff. Brain waves. Brain this and brain that. You were always putting somebody in the EEG room and running tests on him. Got tired of running Ollie through all the time, so you were always looking around for volunteers. Had me in there once. I think you were on to something. Old Schless was pretty excited about your work.”
“You mentioned Ollie. Who’s he?”
“He was a sort of whipping boy for the researchers but you used him most. I guess he liked you. Schless got rid of him after you quit. They had a row, I think. Ollie had only a B.S. I don’t know what Schlessenger was paying him.”
“Maybe this Ollie knew something.”
“I don’t know. Schless accused him of stealing equipment. He was just a kid.”
“Local boy?”
Cox pursed his lips. “I don’t think so.” He turned to Kitty. “He wasn’t a Merrittville boy, was he, Kit?”
“Detroit, I think.”
“Anyway, I haven’t seen him since Schless got back.”
Sherwood said, “Just the same I’d like to know more about him. Do you think you could get his address for me?”
“Ought to.” Cox grinned. “I could sneak a look at the files. There ought to be something on him.” His eyes slid to Virginia and back to Sherwood again. “I can’t get over it. You two act like zombies, do you. know that? Relax. You’re among friends. You used to say you could let your hair down at the Coxes. Only I could never get you over here often enough to do you much good.”
Sherwood said, “If you were to guess, what would you say is responsible for our amnesia?”
Cox sighed. “I suppose I’d act the same way, Walt, if I were in your shoes. Wouldn’t rest until I knew, so maybe telling you to relax is the wrong thing. As for what causes your amnesia—” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t begin to know what to say.”
Virginia said, “Do you think it could be connected with the laboratory?”
“Maybe.”
“You said Walter was on to something, that Dr. Schlessenger was excited about his work.”
“There doesn’t seem to be any alternative, does there? Two people just don’t go around becoming amnesiacs at the drop of a hat.” Cox screwed up his face. “You could have hit on something that affects your memory, Walt. Maybe it didn’t take effect, like radioactive poison, until you were way Out in Los Angeles.
“But Ginny wasn’t at the institute,” Kitty pointed out. “How could she get it?’
“That’s right. I didn’t think of that.”
“I hope you won’t mention Virginia’s condition to Schlessenger,” Sherwood said. “I want to tell him myself.”
“Going to spring it on him, huh? Well, I won’t spoil it.”
“What about me?” Virginia said in a small voice.
“What about you?” Cox asked.
“What was I doing all this time? What did I do in Merrittville?”
Sherwood saw the glance that passed between Cox and his wife. Kitty said, “You worked out at the institute some. Mostly for Dr. Wilhelm. You made routine counts for him.”
“How about that beer now?” Cox asked suddenly.
“Coffee,” Kitty said, darting him a look.
“Coffee,” Cox said, beaten. “Always spoiling a good time. Kitty and her calorie charts. She can have it but won’t take it, and I can’t have it and want it.”
Virginia said, “Maybe I can help you, Kitty,” and rose. When they were alone, Sherwood said quickly, “What was the look for, Hampton?”
Cox said with surprise, “Look?”
“The look you gave your wife when Virginia asked about what she did in Merrittville.”
“I was afraid you noticed it.”
“What did it mean?”
“You were a busy man, Walt.”
“So?”
“You were always at the Institute. She wasn’t happy about it. Used to spend a lot of time with Kitty.” He was silent for a moment, then blurted out, “Ginny loves kids.”
“I see.” He felt Cox’s mind inch away from his. “I never thought about children. Last week—eleven years ago—I was a single man.”
“Well, if you ever start thinking about them, don’t move over a music store. Too much interference from downstairs. We could have a house like Rayburn’s, but we’re salting our money away. Glad of it, too. Never can tell when you’ll need it.”
“Any reason for thinking that way?”
“Well, things haven’t been going too well at the Institute. You knew about it.”
“Something involving you?”
“Something involving us all, Walt.” Cox seemed a little uncomfortable in the chair and shifted around. “In the first place, you have to understand that Schlessenger never had an original idea in his life. We all know that, of course. He started the Institute because he was unable to do any research himself—oh, he’s qualified, has all the degrees and everything, though we often wonder just how he got them.”
When Cox paused for a moment, Sherwood said, “Just a big faker, eh?”
“No, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that, Walt. He’s got spirit, he’s got background, and he’s impressive. Sometimes that’s all you need in this business. He’s a good front man and you’ve got to give him credit for that. Maybe that’s all a director should be. Maybe we all expect too much. But anyway, he’s found himself as the Chief, and he revels in it, although we all suffer more or less because he plays at it so hard. It was Georgia Schlessenger’s money that got him the Institute, you know. Did you know that?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s true. She furnished most of the money and Schlessenger went after the rest of it from the National Science Foundation. He was happy and so was she when they got the go-ahead. He hired a couple of friends—Rayburn and Wilhelm—and he was in business. Then he hired Heneberry and Black, two other one-time acquaintances he wanted to impress. The result was, he got into trouble.”
“Trouble?”
Cox nodded. “Nobody was producing anything. They were all doing what they damn well pleased and not a thing more. No plan, no goal. A lot of their work was merely a repetition of what had already been done in their fields. Schlessenger thought they could get by that way and defended them, but it didn’t work out. The National Science Foundation got on his back. Those boys wanted to see some results. They didn’t care what it was just as long as it was something new and could satisfy the appropriation. They pointed out they weren’t putting up money to prove what was in the textbooks. The upshot was that I was hired Out of a University of Illinois lab where I was doing advanced work on radioactivity and then somebody told him about you and the next thing you knew you were on your way from Ryerson for Merrittville, Michigan.
Cox was silent for a moment. Then he said, “You were the closest to finishing a project and you quit before you completed it. You were always pretty touchy about your work. Schlessenger probably pressed you too hard.”
The picture of Schlessenger was coming into focus. Sherwood said, “So now Schlessenger isn’t sure he’ll have anything when the Foundation asks for it, is that it?”
“The grapevine has it that he promised to produce a few weeks ago and that it was a sheer, bare-faced bluff. Now I understand he’s asked the Foundation for more time. He’s pushing us all, hoping for something, anything at all, so I suppose it’s true.”
“And if you don’t come through with something you might be out of a job?”
Cox shrugged. “If Schless doesn’t have anything to show, the Foundation will cut off the appropriation. It won’t hurt Schlessenger, but it will put the rest of us on the dole.”
“You don’t think he’d continue without an appropriation?”
Smiling wryly, Cox said, “I’d hate like hell to count on it.”
“How about this trip to California? How did that come about?
“It was a convention. Santa Barbara this year. Last year it was Cleveland. All the neurophysiologists. You and Ginny went each year. In fact, Ginny lived the whole year for that. It was one time of the year when she’d have you all to herself—except that Schlessenger insisted on going along this year. Of course he always went to the conventions—his wife hated them, she says—but he’d always go with some big shot, never with one of the boys. I don’t think your wife cared for the arrangement.”
“Maybe that’s why I quit.”
“Why would you wait until you got to Los Angeles to do it?”
“I wonder if I’ll ever know.”
“We were all surprised as hell at the Institute when Schless came back without you. Nobody expected you to quit like that.”
* * * *
When they drew up in front of the house on Walnut Street and Sherwood turned off the lights and the motor, they both sat in the quiet car, Sherwood frowning at a lone street light a half block away, Virginia staring moodily and unseeing through the windshield, both reliving the past four hours with the Coxes.
He glanced at his watch. He couldn’t see it very well, so he lit a cigarette and used the lighter to illuminate the dial. Twelve ten. Too late to see anybody else.
“What time is it?” Virginia asked.
“Ten minutes after twelve.”
“Late.”
“Wish it were earlier.”
“Why?”
“I’d like to see Schlessenger right now.”
“He’s probably asleep.”
“Not the way things are going at the Institute.”
“What?”
He told her what Cox had said about Schlessenger, seeing her absorbed face turned toward him as he talked, the distant street light shining like a star in her eyes.
When he finished, she said, “I haven’t changed my mind.”
“About what?”
“Schlessenger.”
“Your intuition still at work?”
“Yes. I don’t think he’s to be trusted. Especially after that business with the National Science Foundation. Why didn’t he hire good men in the first place?”
“Perhaps he was trying to impress somebody. Maybe he didn’t care, as long as he had the title of director.”
They continued to sit in the car, lost in thought, until Virginia said, “Walter,” and paused as if she were tasting the words before she said them, “are you going to see Schlessenger tomorrow?”
“Of course. And you’re going along.”
She lowered her eyes, let them slide to the dashboard. “What if your talk with Schlessenger doesn’t do any good?”
“What do you mean?”
“What if it turns out he really doesn’t know anything that will help you?”
“I don’t see what you’re driving at.”
“I mean…supposing nothing works out. For us.”
“It’s got to work out, Virginia. There has to be an answer.”
She reached out a hand and ran an exploratory finger around the chrome of the clock. “But if there isn’t?”
He said firmly, “There will be.”
“That’s easy to say.”
“You mustn’t think of failure.”
She turned to him. “I want to be ready for it.”
“I don’t even want to think about failing. I don’t want to go along the rest of my life a—‘a zombie,’ as Cox said.”
“I don’t feel like a zombie.”
“We’re incomplete persons, you and I. Half people.”
“Maybe we are,” she said stubbornly, “but I don’t feel like it.”
He looked at her squarely. “Are you trying to say you’re satisfied with the way things are?”
“I’ve just thought of being forced to go on living without ever learning about the hidden years, that’s all.”
“You mean you want it that way?”
She turned to meet his blinkless stare. “I mean I wonder if they’re as important as we seem to think they are.”
“Important? Why, they’re the difference between being a neurophysiologist and a high school graduate, that’s all. And for you—” He paused when he realized it would not mean so much to her.
“I know getting back your identity means a lot to you, Walter, but I want to know if you could go on like this if you had to, never knowing about those missing years.”
He saw what the answer meant to her and he knew what he should say, but in a way the question angered him, so he said truthfully, “I don’t know,” and when he saw her look away after he said it, he wished he could cut his tongue out.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I meant—”
But this only made it worse.
THIRTEEN
When Virginia woke him to tell it was time for breakfast, how did he want his eggs, Sherwood thought I suppose this is how it used to be, living in this house, getting up for breakfast, going out to the Institute, coming home each night. Except that Cox said I had little time for home. I can’t imagine myself ignoring Virginia like that.
He sat up in bed, looked out on a green backyard complete with arbor, hearing the sounds of birds in nearby trees. It was quiet, restful, and already warm for so early this July day, and for a moment he was reluctant to leave it, and he thought: maybe Virginia has a point, maybe we should leave well enough alone. But he would not let himself get lost in this labyrinth of thought and swung his feet to the floor just as Virginia called from downstairs asking him if he was coming.
As it was, he stepped into the kitchen just as she was transferring his egg from frying pan to plate. He gave her a smile, pulled out her chair for her, and going around to his own, said, “I didn’t expect anything like this.”
She poured coffee, saying, “Maybe I’m setting a bad precedent.”
“A good precedent, you mean.”
“Maybe I should let you get your own breakfast.”
“You wouldn’t want to see me wither and die, would you?” He drank his orange juice. “Was all this here?”
“I’ve been to the store. What time do you think it is? People in Merrittville get up early.”
He glanced at the kitchen clock. Nine twenty. “By Institution standards I suppose the day’s well under way.”
He had just started on his egg
when the phone rang. For a moment they sat in startled silence looking at each other. Then Sherwood said, “So we have a phone.”
“It’s in the alcove beneath the stairs. I noticed it yesterday.” She rose.
“I’ll get it,” he said.
It was Hampton Cox.
“I’m calling from downtown. I ran in for something and thought I’d call you.”
“You’ve found out something?”
“In a way. Do you know that woman—Miss Lawson? She’s Schlessenger’s receptionist and secretary.”
“Yes, I met her yesterday.”
“She’s always been friendly to me. I asked her this morning for Lansing’s address.”
“Lansing?” he said and then remembered this name as that of his lab assistant.
“Oliver Lansing. You know—Ollie.”
“Oh. Did you get it?”
“No.”
“No? Why?”
“She was as surprised as I. Every reference to him has been taken out of the files. It’s as if he never worked at the Institute.”
“I’ll be damned.”
“She was all for quizzing Schlessenger about it, but I told her she better not. Something’s up, all right.”
“Schlessenger got rid of it.”
“What else is there to think, Walt? For some reason he doesn’t want anybody to contact Ollie.”
“He must know something then.”
“A guy can’t just disappear without leaving some trace. I know where he used to live here in town and I’m going to call Kitty. She can get on the telephone, call the post office, see if he left a forwarding address, nose around among people she knows. Something ought to turn up.”
“You mentioned Detroit. You think he might have gone there?”
“You might try calling Detroit. Listen: I’ve got to get back. I’ll let you know if anything else happens.”
Virginia said, “Your eggs are cold,” when he returned to the kitchen. “What was that all about?”
He told about Ollie and what Cox had discovered at the Institute. “It’s the first real lead we’ve had.”
“There must be a lot of Lansings in Detroit. You couldn’t call them all. Besides, if this Ollie lived here he wouldn’t have a phone listed in Detroit.”