A Woman a Day

by Philip José Farmer

  I forgot to get my fingernails cleaned... must have that new manicurist Rahab... significant name... do them. Halla will be too weak for a while... no, shameful... shameful... wonder how Leif’s making out with his secretary? Rachel’s pretty, but I’ll bet cold, an icicle on two legs... like so many women... Halla only real woman ever had... what colleagues think if knew that... Sigmen says sex ought to be repressed... make more amenable citizens... shib... shib... but what about hierarchy... should they be same as citizens? Better than... Halla only woman knows how give... Sigmen, what if I die while thinking these unreal thoughts... forgive... the old Backrunner in me...

  So that’s how I... I... I... I... I... look inside me. Nest of worms... Leif good man... won’t make mistake... hope... hope... ah, to die, never see Halla again... she go to another man... Sigmen! Rather she died... static...

  And then a long and sustained vision of what would happen after the Timestop. Leif could not see the images; he had to piece them together from stray words. Sigmen would make the pseudo-worlds real and give each and every one of his faithful followers an entire universe to rule. Imagine your own Cosmos... get it on a platter... step through a door, leave this world... all hail, Emperor of Infinity, Sovereign of Eternity... what is your will? will? will? will? and so the echo bounced down the resonant chambers of the mind.

  Leif could imagine the orgy burning through the forest of neurons, he’d seen enough into the minds of other men to guess that. He wasn’t particularly disgusted; what did make him recoil a trifle was the hypocrisy.

  Leif dutifully read the rest of the kymo. Most of it was the usual Augean flood; he did smile when he came across more irrepressible doubts about the beliefs of the Sturch, and Dannto’s thought that he might have been wasting his time so rigorously following a falsehood. Then more anguished cerebral bellows of repentance and demands for forgiveness, all quite stylized, doubt here being put upon a formalistic religious basis. Then came the concluding prayer that he be given the zealous fanatical certainty and unswerving faith of Candleman. But not, dear Sigmen, the one-dimensional mind that went with them.

  “Amen,” said Leif and dropped the graph into the incinerator.

  Chapter 14

  INSERTING FRESH PAPER in the kymo, Leif turned to go. He paused, startled, for a man in a white orderly’s smock stood by the door. He had a pale skin, red hair, blue eyes and a high-arched, flare-nostriled nose.

  “ Shalom, Jim Crew,” said Leif.

  “ Shalom,” said Crew.

  “Do you still want the same thing?” Leif asked.

  “You know I do, Dr. Barker. We could have let our child die long ago. But we love her, and so we’ve been... holding her hand... because we know that there are some things we can’t do.”

  “There are other surgeons in this city. Why come to me?”

  He turned to the ’picker and flicked on the toggle. Then he turned the helmet until the dial registered impact with cerebral waves. He turned another dial so the helmet, whose inner surface was the receiver, would turn, following the source of radiation as a flower focuses upon the sun. Nor, if Leif’s waves crossed the beam, would it be confused, for it was set for Crew’s individual pattern.

  Crew smiled.

  “You need not do that, Doctor. Look at the graph.”

  Leif saw nothing but static. He turned to face Crew.

  “You are deliberately creating that?”

  “Yes. You can, too, with instruction. And with the will.”

  “You still haven’t answered my question. Why come to me?”

  Crew stepped closer, walking upon his toes, turned slightly inward.

  He looked earnestly into the surgeon’s face.

  “There are several other doctors who could help our child. But these would all inform the Uzzites. You will not.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because, first, and least important, you would fear we would write a note to Candleman and tell him that you are not Leif Barker, but Lev Baruch; that you are the leader of the most important movement of the CWC; that many Marchers are wearing the lamech because of a drug that enables them to pass the Elohimeter; that you know what Jacques Cuze means.

  “That alone would make you come with us. But we won’t use such means, Dr. Barker. We would let our child die rather than use force, even mental force. Such violence could only recoil upon us. You will come because it is not your nature to allow a child to die.”

  “You’re very sure of yourself,” said Leif with some difficulty. “If you won’t use coercion, why call on me at all? You must know that by doing so I’m not only exposing myself to the Jacks, but my own people as well. K they hear of it, they’ll be gunning for me.”

  “I notice you said doing, not if you do. But I’ll answer you. We’re appealing to your humanity. Those other issues don’t matter. They are based upon bloodshed, murder, treachery, hate.”

  “True,” said Leif. “But a man must defend himself.”

  “The best defense is none.”

  “We won’t get far exchanging platitudes like two wise owls hooting at each other. What kind of surgical equipment do you have?”

  Jim Crew gestured helplessly. “We don’t use medicines. The little equipment we do have, we borrowed from our neighbors, the Timbuktumen.”

  “Very well. Describe the child’s injury.”

  As Jim Crew closed his eyes and gave a very accurate word-picture, Leif ticked off what he would need. He couldn’t carry too bulky a load; he would have to improvise.

  He had rationalized that he was doing the CWC a service by contacting this unknown underground and thus finding out what the Bantus were doing. Though the Africans were a negligible military power, the Free State of March might like to use them at some time.

  Barker knew he was rationalizing; the service would consider his actions material for court-martial. But man must rationalize, even when he knows it.

  While he was collecting the materials from the Pharm in the adjoining room, Leif said, “Where did you Banties get that depigmentizing technique?”

  “Curiously enough, it’s the invention of a Jack convert,” said Jim Crew. “The full details for extracting or depositing pigment have been lying for fifty years in the files of the professional journal for kerationologists. It, like many others that could be utilized, has sunk into the dust of libraries. The joat who read it never realized its possibilities. And the inventor himself escaped to Capetown.”

  Without asking permission, Leif tilted the man’s head so the light fell on the desired angle on the nose. “You should have had me put in the artificial arch,” he said.

  “I’d not have left any surgical signs there or on your lips.”

  “The scar appeared after we were depigmentized. The process seemed to bring them out.”

  Leif grunted, unimpressed. “Let’s go.”

  They took the service car and left separately, by the hospital’s rear, through the personnel’s door. The Uzzite on guard there flashed his light. Leif showed his lamech; Jim Crew, his ID.

  “Where did you get the uniform and the card?” asked Leif, as they climbed into his runabout.

  “My brother used to work here,” said the African.

  “We knew we would have a use for such things some day.”

  Leif started the motor and turned on the headlights.

  “How did you four get in here this morning? I know the Uzzites weren’t watching then, but just the same it’s very difficult to pass the regular gapts.”

  “We have lovers.”

  “Ah! And why did all of you have to come! Why not one?”

  “Together we are more than just four or just one.”

  “The whole is greater than the parts?”

  “Something like that.”

  Jim Crew watched Leif drive for a while and then said, “How do you know where we are going?”

  Leif blinked and said, “I don’t know. Rather, I just knew.”

  He paused. “I had the feeling of
my destination.”

  He struck the wheel with his left fist. “It’s gone now!”

  “I shouldn’t have said anything,” purred Jim Crew.

  “You are like a child who knows something until it is pointed out by an ignorant adult that he can’t possibly know. Then, of course, he no longer knows.”

  “Well, where do we go?”

  Crew pointed. Leif turned the wheel in the direction indicated.

  After a while, the Bantu said, “We are being followed.”

  “I might have known we couldn’t get away with it,” said Leif. He looked at the rear-view mirror but could not see any cars.

  “Where are they?”

  “Around the comer.”

  “Listen,” said Leif. “If they catch us, I’m protecting myself. I’m claiming that you forced me at gun’s point to go with you to operate on your daughter.”

  Jim Crew shivered and said, “I don’t like being accused of violence, but just as you say. Only, I think you’d better kill me. Otherwise, they’ll drug the truth out of me.”

  “I will,” said Leif. “But they haven’t caught us yet.”

  He pressed the accelerator to the floor. The most the car could do was forty kph; the Uzzite’s car would be capable of twice that much.

  “They can catch us, but they’ll probably let us go to our destination,” said Leif. “I’d like it if we could abandon this car and make our way on foot.”

  “Set the controls for auto,” suggested Jim. “After we turn the next corner. We can get out and go down that subway entrance.”

  As they rounded the huge block of a building, Leif slammed on the brakes. They slowed to ten, he set the dials, and then he and Crew jumped out. Neither fell. They struck the ground running and continued unchecked into the subway entrance.

  “This won’t fool them long,” said Leif. “They’ll be back shortly, and they may have radioed the Uzzites at the gates to watch for us.”

  Jim Crew ran down the granite-looking plastic steps. He did not turn to the right, which led to the platforms, but the other way, which ran to a large room housing various concessions and comfort stations.

  They had to force their way through crowds. This was the hour when many were on their way home from work; besides, the stations were always thronged with Paris’ overpopulation.

  Naturally, there would be many gapts and Uzzites among them who would, if outcry arose, seize them. But Leif had thrown his coat back so his lamech showed. The sight of it was a trumpet blast; everybody stepped to one side.

  When they went into the indicated lane, Leif appreciated the Jack modesty at which he’d once mocked. Heirs of the long dead Parisians, the present occupants had rejected the Gallic earthiness and substituted their own code of bashfulness. This included many cubicles with swinging doors that reached from ceiling to floor to insure privacy.

  As the gapt turned away at a secret signal, both men entered a cubicle. Leif noticed the J. C. scratched on the door. He raised his brows, for it was his first indication that the Banties also had utilized that sign and symbol. It was, he thought, natural, for it could easily represent their Lord and Master and also helped to confuse them with the legendary Frenchman, perhaps to disguise altogether their presence in Paris.

  The Banties were using the Marchers. Could the Marchers use them?

  When the two had crowded into the closet, Jim said, “Don’t snap the lock. That would be the surest thing to lead the Uzzites to us.”

  “Give me credit for brains.”

  Jim didn’t reply. Reaching up as far as he could, he pressed against a square in the pattern stamped into the plastic pseudo-marble.

  “Left hand comer, seven down for the Seven Deadly Sins, three across for the Trinity that wipes them out,” said Jim Crew. “It doesn’t work unless you press rapidly seven times, pause three seconds, and then press three more.”

  The section slid backwards and then to one side. Jim Crew stepped in and turned around to beckon Leif. Smiling, he went through. The Bantie pushed the rectangle back into place.

  Down they went on a spiral. The surgeon counted three hundred steps, easily enough to take them below the level of the present-day subways. They must be getting close to the ancient subways or the pre-Apocalyptic sewers.

  Presently the Bantie warned his blind follower to stop; they were coming to a door. Leif couldn’t see what moves the man was making, but his hand was seized and placed upon a lever.

  “It’s to the right, halfway down,” said Crew.

  “Thanks. But we surely won’t be coming back the same way?”

  “No. It’s a good thing to know, though, if you have to take this route again.”

  “You’re very open about these things.”

  “We trust you.”

  Leif wondered if the fellow ever used anything but the editorial plural. He didn’t seem to have an ego of his own.

  They stepped out into what must have been a long tunnel with a high roof, for their whispers and the shuffle of their feet came back to them hollow and magnified.

  “What about using a light?” asked Leif.

  Jim Crew seemed surprised. “What? Oh yes, if it will make you feel any better. But you can trust that we won’t fall—we know these places.”

  Somehow, Leif felt reproached. His hand dropped from his coat pocket, his flashlight untouched. Nevertheless, he would have liked to get a glimpse of the legendary underground of Paris.

  They stopped on the lip of a ledge of concrete. Crew let himself down over it and helped Leif. Before they’d gone a few steps, Leif halted to feel around on the floor.

  “There used to be iron tracks here,” he said.

  “Yes, this was, at one time, the top-level track for the subway. But as years went by and the city kept on building up and up, it became one of the lowest. Then, when Paris was C-bombed, these tunnels became sealed off by a fused silicon sheet. A new Paris built upon it. But come. We’ve a long way to go. And Anadi is getting further away from her fathers and mothers; we know that strength is draining from our hands faster and faster.”

  “It would be very sociable of you if you would explain what you’re talking about.”

  “We... ssh!”

  Jim Crew dropped so suddenly that Leif bumped into him. Instantly, Leif pulled his flash and automatic out, one in each hand. The Bantu grabbed his shoulder and ran his hand down the doctor’s arm, feeling for his hand.

  “Put those away,” was his whispered rebuke.

  A voice whispered from the darkness, very near, very low, and yet so close that Leif could have sworn the breath fanned his cheek.

  “Jim Crew. Leif Barker.”

  Chills raked down his back. He raised his flash to center it upon the owner of the voice. Before he could press the button to turn it on, he felt the tube snatched from his fingers.

  “Damn it, Crew,!” he bellowed, forgetting all caution. “Give that back!”

  “May the Lord forgive you,” whispered the Bantu. “I didn’t do that.”

  “There’s something funny about this,” replied Leif, automatically lowering his voice. “What’re you trying to pull on me? That was the voice of Halla Dannto!”

  “Which one?” husked Crew.

  “What do you mean? I’ve only heard the second...

  He trailed off into a sigh as the full significance seized his throat.

  Hoarsely, he said, “Come on, give. Who is that?”

  Jim Crew moved close to Leif. His shudders ran down his arm and shook Leif’s. Suddenly a hand, presumably the Bantu’s, reached out from the dark and traced two perpendicular lines across the surgeon’s forehead.

  “In that sign, save us,” whispered the African.

  Leif felt like echoing him. He opened his mouth to ask another question, and a long, thin, and hard object was thrust into it. He bit down on it, went to spit it out, and stopped, for it was his flashlight. At the same time, somebody tittered.

  The next moment, disregarding Crew’s warning
cry, he turned it on.

  He wished he hadn’t.

  It was Halla Dannto standing in the darkness.

  Not the woman in the bed in 113.

  The woman who had submitted to his knife. The woman upon the marble slab. After he had dissected her.

  He cried out and then, trying to control himself, bit down upon his lower lip so hard that the blood flowed and left salt in his mouth.

  The cone of light wavered as his hand shook, but it showed distinctly the scalp rolled back like an orange peeling, the gaping chest and abdomen.

  “What is that?” he snarled.

  Fury was replacing panic.

  The Bantu gripped his arm and said, “Try hard. Try hard to see through her, see who’s behind her.”

  Leif didn’t understand him. Nevertheless, he made an effort to stare the thing down, to look, as Crew suggested, through her. It was almost impossible to do. She frightened and nauseated him; facing her was like facing his own conscience.

  The floodtide of anger helped him. He couldn’t keep out the idea that perhaps the Bantu and an accomplice were playing a trick of some kind on him. Reason told him otherwise. Crew had not known beforehand that they were coming down this way. Besides, what could be the purpose of such a fraud?

  That thing was no masquerade; it was real!

  Chapter 15

  LEIF STEPPED FORWARD, holding the beam steady as he did so. The figure wavered, became slightly out-of-focus, melted. For a second Leif could see through it and glimpsed the face of a man. It was one like Crew’s: very pale, thick-lipped, with a nose with broad nostrils and high arch. The mouth was open and drooling; the eyes were closed tightly as if the light hurt them.

  “That’s far enough,” said Jim Crew. “Don’t make him angry! Leave him alone. He won’t hurt us. That is, if you turn the light off, he won’t.”

  The doctor hated to relinquish the beam, for he felt helpless in the dark with a thing like that close, a thing that obviously could move in the night of the tunnel as confidently as he could at high noon on an open street. So urgent was his companion’s voice, so compelling, he obeyed.