The Memory of Mars
Page 2
time."
"That wasn't true?"
"No. Neither of us had ever been out in space."
"How well did you know your wife before you married her?"
Mel smiled in faint reminiscence. "We grew up together, went to the samegrade school and high school. It seems like there was never a time whenAlice and I didn't know each other. Our folks lived next door foryears."
"Was she a member of a large family?"
"She had an older brother and sister and two younger sisters."
"What were her parents like?"
"They're still living. Her father runs an implement store. It's a farmcommunity where they live. Wonderful people. Alice was just like them."
Dr. Winters was silent before he went on. "I have subjected you to thismental torture for just one reason, Mr. Hastings. If it has been amatter of any less importance I would not have told you the details ofyour wife's condition, much less asking you to look at her. But this issuch an enormous scientific mystery that I must ask your cooperation inhelping to solve it. I want your permission to preserve and dissect thebody of your wife for the cause of science."
Mel looked at the Doctor in sudden sharp antagonism. "Not even give hera burial? Let her be put away in bottles, like--like a--"
"Please don't upset yourself any more than necessary. But I do beg thatyou consider what I've just proposed. Surely a moment's reflection willshow you that this is no more barbaric than our other customs regardingour dead.
"But even this is beside the point. The girl, Alice, whom you married islike a normal human being in every apparent external respect, yet theorgans which gave her life and enabled her to function are like nothingencountered before in human experience. It is imperative that weunderstand the meaning of this. It is yours to say whether or not weshall have this opportunity."
Mel started to speak again, but the words wouldn't come out.
"Time is critical," said Dr. Winters, "but I don't want to force you toan instantaneous answer. Take thirty minutes to think about it. Withinthat time, additional means of preservation must be taken. I regret thatI must be in such haste, but I urge that your answer be yes."
Dr. Winters moved towards the door, but Mel gestured for him to remain.
"I want to see her again," Mel said.
"There is no need. You have been tortured enough. Remember your wife asyou have known her all her life, not as you saw her a moment ago."
"If you want my answer let me see her again."
* * *
Dr. Winters led the way silently back to the cold room. Mel drew downthe cover only far enough to expose the face of Alice. There was nomistake. Somehow he had been hoping that all this would turn out to besome monstrous error. But there was no error.
Would she want me to do what the Doctor has asked? he thought. Shewouldn't care. She would probably think it a very huge joke that she hadbeen born with innards that made her different from everybody else. Shewould be amused by the profound probings and mutterings of the learneddoctors trying to find an explanation for something that had noexplanation.
Mel drew the sheet tenderly over her face.
"You can do as you wish," he said to Dr. Winters. "It makes nodifference to us--to either of us."
* * * * *
The sedative Dr. Winters had given him, plus his own exhaustion, droveMel to sleep for a few hours during the afternoon, but by evening he wasawake again and knew that a night of sleeplessness lay ahead of him. Hecouldn't stand to spend it in the house, with all its fresh reminders ofAlice.
He walked out into the street as it began to get dark. Walking was easy;almost no one did it any more. The rush of private and commercial carsswarmed overhead and rumbled in the ground beneath. He was an isolatedanachronism walking silently at the edge of the great city.
He was sick of it. He would have liked to have turned his back on thecity and left it forever. Alice had felt the same. But there was nowhereto go. News reporting was the only thing he knew, and news occurredonly in the great, ugly cities of the world. The farmlands, such as heand Alice had known when they were young, produced nothing of interestto the satiated denizens of the towns and cities. Nothing except food,and much of this was now being produced by great factories thatsynthesized protein and carbohydrates. When fats could be synthesizedthe day of the farmer would be over.
He wondered if there weren't some way out of it now. With Alice gonethere was only himself, and his needs were few. He didn't know, butsuddenly he wanted very much to see it all again. And, besides, he hadto tell her folks.
* * * * *
The ancient surface bus reached Central Valley at noon the next day. Itall looked very much as it had the last time Mel had seen it and itlooked very good indeed. The vast, open lands; the immense ripe fields.
The bus passed the high school where Mel and Alice had attended classestogether. He half expected to see her running across the campus lawn tomeet him. In the middle of town he got off the bus and there wereAlice's mother and father.
They were dry-eyed now but white and numb with shock. George Dalby tookhis hand and pumped it heavily. "We can't realize it, Mel. We justcan't believe Alice is gone."
His wife put her arms around Mel and struggled with her tears again."You didn't say anything about the funeral. When will it be?"
Mel swallowed hard, fighting the one lie he had to tell. He almostwondered now why he had agreed to Dr. Winters' request. "Alice--alwayswanted to do all the good she could in the world," he said. "She figuredthat she could be of some use even after she was gone. So she made anagreement with the research hospital that they could have her body aftershe died."
It took a moment for her mother to grasp the meaning. Then she criedout, "We can't even bury her?"
"We should have a memorial service, right here at home where all herfriends are," said Mel.
George Dalby nodded in his grief. "That was just like Alice," he said."Always wanting to do something for somebody else--"
And it was true, Mel thought. If Alice had supposed she was not going tolive any longer she would probably have thought of the idea, herself.Her parents were easily reconciled.
They took him out to the old familiar house and gave him the room wherehe and Alice had spent the first days of their marriage.
* * * * *
When it was night and the lights were out he felt able to sleepnaturally for the first time since Alice's accident. She seemed not faraway here in this old familiar house.
In memory, she was not, for Mel was convinced he could remember thedetails of his every association with her. He first became conscious ofher existence one day when they were in the third grade. At thebeginning of each school year the younger pupils went through a courseof weighing, inspection, knee tapping, and cavity counting. Mel had comein late for his examination that year and barged into the wrong room. Ashower of little-girl squeals had greeted him as the teacher told himkindly where the boy's examination room was.
But he remembered most vividly Alice Dalby standing in the middle of theroom, her blouse off but held protectingly in front of her as she jumpedup and down in rage and pointed a finger at him. "You get out of here,Melvin Hastings! You're not a nice boy at all!"
Face red, he had hastily retreated as the teacher assured Alice and therest of the girls that he had made a simple mistake. But how angry Alicehad been! It was a week before she would speak to him.
He smiled and sank back deeply into the pillow. He remembered how proudhe had been when old Doc Collins, who came out to do the honors everyFall, had told him there wasn't a thing wrong with him and that if hecontinued to drink his milk regularly he'd grow up to be a footballplayer. He could still hear Doc's words whistling through his teeth andfeel the coldness of the stethoscope on his chest.
Suddenly, he sat upright in bed in the darkness.
Stethoscope!
They had tapped and inspected and l
istened to Alice that day, and allthe other examination days.
If Doc Collins had been unable to find a heartbeat in her he'd havefainted--and spread the news all over town!
Mel got up and stood at the window, his heart pounding. Old Doc Collinswas gone, but the medical records of those school examinations mightstill be around somewhere. He didn't know what he expected to prove, butsurely those records would not tell the same story Dr. Winters had told.
It took him nearly all the next day. The grade school principal agreedto help him check through the dusty attic of the school, where ancientrecords and papers were tumbled about and burst from their cardboardboxes.
Then Paul Ames, the school board secretary, took Mel down to theDistrict Office and offered to help look for the records. The oldbuilding was