Now Wait for Last Year

  “The antidote’s in town. Or soon will be. All Hazeltine Corp. has to do is whip up a batch and express it here. Another six hours.” He made an attempt to smile encouragingly; it failed. “How do you feel?”

  “Fine now. Since you brought me the news.” She was surprisingly matter-of-fact, even for her with her schizoid ways. The sedation no doubt accounted for it. “You did it, didn’t you? Found it for me.” Then, at last remembering, she added, “Oh yes. And for yourself, too. But you could have kept it, not told me. Thanks, dear.”

  “ ‘Dear.’ ” It hurt to hear her use such a word to him.

  “I can see,” Kathy said carefully, “that underneath you really are fond of me still, despite what I’ve done to you. Otherwise you wouldn’t—”

  “Sure I would; you think I’m a moral monster? The cure should be a matter of public record, available for anyone who’s on the damn stuff. Even ’Starmen. As far as I’m concerned deliberately addictive, toxic drugs are an abomination, a crime against life.” He was silent then, thinking to himself, And someone who addicts another is a criminal and ought to be hanged or shot. “I’m leaving,” he said. “Going back to Cheyenne. I’ll see you. Good luck on your therapy.” He added, trying not to make it sound deliberately unkind, “You know, it won’t restore the physical damage already done; you understand that, Kathy.”

  “How old,” she asked, “do I look?”

  “You look what you are, about thirty-five.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I’ve seen in the mirror.”

  Eric said, “See to it, will you, that everyone who took the drug that night with you, that first time, gets some of the antidote; I’ll trust you to do that. Okay?”

  “Of course. They’re my friends.” She toyed with a corner of her magazine. “Eric, I can’t expect you to stay with me now, with the way I am physically. All withered and—” She broke off and became silent.

  Was this his chance? He said, “You want a divorce, Kathy? If you do I’ll give it to you. But personally—” He hesitated. How far could hypocrisy go? What was really required of him now? His future self, his compatriot from 2056, had pleaded with him to break loose from her. Didn’t all aspects of reason dictate that he do so and if possible right now?

  In a low voice Kathy said, “I still love you. I don’t want to separate. I’ll try to treat you better; honestly I will. I promise.”

  “Shall I be honest?”

  “Yes,” she said. “You should always be honest.”

  “Let me go.”

  She looked up at him. Some of the old spirit, the venom that had etched away the fiber of their relationship, glowed in her eyes. But it was vitiated now. Her addiction, plus the sedation, had weakened her; the power which she had formerly exerted over him, trapping him and hugging him to her, had gone. Shrugging, she murmured, “Well, I asked you to be honest and I got just that. I guess I should be glad.”

  “Will you agree, then? You’ll commence litigation?”

  Kathy said carefully, “On one condition. If there’s no other woman.”

  “There isn’t.” He thought of Phyllis Ackerman; that surely didn’t count. Even in Kathy’s suspicion-haunted world.

  “If I find out there is,” she stated, “I’ll fight a divorce; I won’t co-operate. You’ll never get free from me; that’s a promise, too.”

  “Then it’s agreed.” He felt a great weight slide into the abyss of infinity, leaving him with a merely earthly load, one which an ordinary human being could bear. “Thanks,” he said.

  Kathy said, “Thank you, Eric, for the antidote. So look what my drug addiction, my years of using drugs, has meant, finally. It’s made it possible for you to escape. It did accomplish some good after all.”

  For the life of him he could not determine if she meant that sardonically. He decided to inquire about something else. “When you feel better are you going to resume your job here at TF&D?”

  “Eric, I may have something stirring for me. When I was under the drug’s influence, back in the past—” She halted, then painfully continued; talking was difficult for her now. “I mailed an electronic part to Virgil. Back in the mid 1930s. With a note telling him what to do about it and also who I was. So he’d remember me later on. About now, in fact.”

  Eric said, “But—” He broke off.

  “Yes?” She managed to fix her attention on him, what he was saying. “Did I do something wrong? Alter the past and disturb things?”

  It was almost impossible, he discovered, to tell her. But she would find out anyhow, as soon as she made inquiries. Virgil would have received no part, because as soon as she left the past the part left, too; Virgil, as a child, had received an empty envelope or nothing at all. He found this mournfully sad.

  “What is it?” she was asking laboriously. “I can tell by your expression-I know you so well-that I did something bad.”

  Eric said, “I’m just surprised. By your ingenuity. Listen.” He crouched down beside her, put his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t count on it making much difference; your job here with Virgil can’t basically be improved on and anyhow Virgil is hardly the grateful type.”

  “But it was worth a try, don’t you think?”

  “Yes,” he said, straightening up. He was glad at that point to let it drop.

  He said goodbye to her, patted her-futilely-once more, and then he made his way to the elevator and from it to Virgil Ackerman’s office.

  Virgil, glancing up as he entered, cackled, “I heard you were back, Eric. Sit down and tell me how it is; Kathy looks bad, doesn’t she? Hazeltine wasn’t—”

  “Listen,” Eric said, shutting the door. The two of them were alone. “Virgil, can you get Molinari here to TF&D?”

  “Why?” Birdlike, Virgil regarded him alertly.

  Eric told him.

  When he had heard, Virgil said, “I’ll call Gino. I can hint and because we know each other he’ll understand on an intuitive level. He’ll come. Probably right away; when he acts he goes fast.”

  “I’ll stay here, then,” Eric decided. “I won’t return to Cheyenne. In fact maybe I’d better go back to the Caesar Hotel and stay with Deg.”

  “And take a gun with you,” Virgil said. He picked up the vidphone receiver and said, “Get me the White House in Cheyenne.” To Eric he said, “If they’ve got this line tapped it won’t help them; they won’t be able to tell what we’re talking about.” Into the receiver he said, “I want to talk to Secretary Molinari; this is Virgil Ackerman calling personally.”

  Eric sat back and listened. It was going well now, finally. He could take this moment to rest. Become simply a spectator.

  From the vidphone a voice, that of the White House switchboard operator, squalled in frantic hysteria, “Mr. Ackerman, is Dr. Sweetscent there? We can’t locate him and Molinari, Mr. Molinari, I mean, is dead, and can’t be revived.”

  Virgil raised his eyes and confronted Eric.

  “I’m on my way,” Eric said. He felt only numb. Nothing more.

  “Too late,” Virgil said. “I’ll bet you.”

  The operator shrilled, “Mr. Ackerman, he’s been dead two hours now; Dr. Teagarden can’t do anything with him, and—”

  “Ask what organ gave out,” Eric said.

  The operator heard him. “His heart. Is that you, Dr. Sweetscent? Dr. Teagarden said the aortic artery ruptured—”

  “I’ll take an artiforg heart with me,” Eric said to Virgil. To the operator at the White House he said, “Tell Teagarden to keep the body temp as low as he can; I’m sure he’s doing that anyhow.”

  “There’s one good high-speed ship on the roof field,” Virgil said. “It’s the ship we flew to Wash-35 in; it’s undoubtedly the best anywhere near here.”

  “I’ll pick out the heart myself,” Eric decided. “So I’ll go back to my office; why don’t you get the ship readied for me?” He was calm at this point. It was either too late or it wasn’t. He got there in time or he didn’t. Haste, right now, had remo
te value.

  Virgil, as he tapped the vidphone switch for TF&D’s switchboard, said, “The 2056 you were in is not the one connected to our world.”

  “Evidently not,” Eric agreed. And started on the run for the elevator.

  13

  At the White House roof field Don Festenburg met him, pale and stammering with tension. “W-where were you, doctor? You didn’t notify anybody you were leaving Cheyenne; we thought you were somewhere nearby.” He strode ahead of Eric, toward the field’s nearest in-track.

  Carrying the boxed artiforg, Eric followed.

  At the door of the Secretary’s bedroom Teagarden appeared, his face constricted with fatigue. “Just for the hell of it, where were you, doctor?”

  I was trying to end the war, Eric thought. He said merely, “How cool is he?”

  “No appreciable metabolism; don’t you think I know how to conduct that aspect of restoration? I’ve got written instructions here which automatically become operative the moment he’s unconscious or dead and can’t be revived.” He handed Eric the sheets.

  At a glance Eric saw the vital paragraph. No artiforg. Under any circumstance. Even if it were the only chance for Molinari’s survival.

  “Is this binding?” Eric asked.

  “We’ve consulted the Attorney General,” Dr. Teagarden said. “It is. You ought to know; any artiforg, in anybody, can only be inserted with written permission in advance.”

  “Why does he want it this way?” Eric asked.

  “I don’t know,” Teagarden said. “Will you make an attempt to revive him without use of the artiforg heart which I see you brought? That’s all we’re left with.” His tone dropped with bitterness and defeat. “With nothing. He complained about his heart before you left; he told you-I heard him-that he thought an artery had ruptured. And you walked out of here.” He stared at Eric.

  Eric said, “That’s the problem with hypochondria. You never know.”

  “Well,” Teagarden said with a ragged sigh, “okay-I didn’t realize it either.”

  Turning to Don Festenburg, Eric said, “What about Freneksy? Does he know?”

  With a faint, quivering smirk of nervousness Festenburg said, “Of course.”

  “Any reaction from him?”

  “Concern.”

  “You’re not letting any further ’Star ships in here, I assume.”

  Festenburg said, “Doctor, your job is to heal the patient, not to dictate policy.”

  “It would help me heal the patient if I knew that—”

  “Cheyenne is sealed off,” Festenburg conceded at last. “No ship except yours has been permitted to land since this occurred.”

  Eric walked to the bed and gazed down at Gino Molinari lost in the tangle of machinery that maintained his temperature and measured a thousand conditions extant deep within his body. The plump, short figure could hardly be seen; the face was completely obscured by a new item, scarcely ever employed up to now, for catching extremely delicate alterations in the brain. It was the brain, at all costs, that had to be protected. Everything could go but that.

  Everything could go-except that Molinari had forbidden the use of an artiforg heart. So that was that. Medically speaking the clock had been set back a century by this neurotic, self-destructive injunction.

  Already, without examining the now-open chest of the man, Eric knew that he was helpless. Outside of the field of org-trans he was probably no more competent a surgeon than Teagarden. Everything in his own career had hung on the possibility of replacing the failing organ.

  “Let’s see that document again.” He took the paper back from Teagarden, studied it more thoroughly. Surely as wily and resourceful a man as Molinari had imagined some viable alternative to org-trans. It couldn’t end here.

  “Prindle has been notified, of course,” Festenburg said. “He’s standing by, ready to speak over TV when and if it’s certain we can’t revive Molinari.” His voice was flat, unnaturally so; Eric glanced at him, wondering how he truly felt about this.

  “What about this paragraph?” Eric said, showing the document to Dr. Teagarden. “About the activation of the GRS Enterprises robant simulacrum, the one of Molinari used in the video tape. To be put on TV tonight.”

  “What about it?” Teagarden said, rereading the paragraph. “The airing of the tape will be scratched, of course. As far as the robant itself goes I know nothing about it. Maybe Festenburg does.” He turned questioningly to Don Festenburg.

  “That paragraph,” Festenburg said, “is senseless. Literally. For instance, what’s a robant doing in cold-pak? We can’t make out Molinari’s reasoning and anyhow we’ve got our hands full. There’re forty-three paragraphs to this damn document; we can’t carry them all out simultaneously, can we?”

  Eric said, “But you know where—”

  “Yes,” Festenburg said, “I know where the simulacrum is.”

  “Get it out of the cold-pak,” Eric said. “Activate it as per the instructions in this document. Which you already know to be legally binding.”

  “Activate it and then what?”

  “It’ll tell you itself,” Eric said, “from then on.” And for years to come, he said to himself. Because that’s the whole point of the document. There will be no public announcement that Gino Molinari has died because as soon as that so-called robant is activated it will not be so.

  And, he thought, I think you know it, Festenburg.

  They looked at each other silently.

  To a Secret Service man Eric said, “I want four of you to accompany him while he does it. Just a suggestion, but I hope you take me up on it.”

  The man nodded, beckoned to a group of his co-workers; they fell in behind Festenburg, who looked confused and frightened now and in no way self-possessed. He left on his reluctant errand, the group of Secret Service men close behind.

  “What about a further attempt to repair the ruptured aortic artery?” Dr. Teagarden demanded. “Aren’t you going to try? A plastic section can still be—”

  “The Molinari in this time sequence,” Eric said, “has been battered enough. Don’t you agree? This is the moment to retire it; that’s what he wants.” We’re going to have to face a fact, he realized, that perhaps none of us wants to face because it means we’re in for a kind of government-have had a kind of government already-hardly in accord with our theoretical ideas.

  Molinari had founded a dynasty consisting of himself.

  “That simulacrum can’t rule in Gino’s place,” Teagarden protested. “It’s a construct and the law forbids—”

  “That’s why Gino refused the use of an artificial organ. He can’t do what Virgil has done, replace each in turn, because by doing so he’d be open to legal challenge. But that’s not important.” Not now, anyhow. He thought, Prindle isn’t the Mole’s heir and neither is Don Festenburg, however much he’d like to be. I doubt if the dynasty is endless but at least it’ll survive this blow. And that’s quite a lot.

  After a pause Teagarden said, “That’s why it’s in cold-pak. I see.”

  “And it’ll stand up to any test you care to give it.” You, Minister Freneksy, anyone, including Don Festenburg who probably figured it out before I did, he realized, but couldn’t do anything about it. “That’s what distinguishes this solution; even if you know what’s going on you can’t stop it.” This rather enlarged the concept of political maneuvering. Was he horrified by this? Or impressed? To be honest, as yet he did not know. It was too novel a solution, this collusion of Gino Molinari with himself, behind the scenes. His tinkering with the colossal entity of rebirth in his own inimitable, faster-than-the-eye way.

  “But,” Teagarden protested, “that leaves another time continuum without a UN Secretary. So what’s gained if—”

  “The one which Don Festenburg has gone to activate,” Eric said, “undoubtedly comes from a world in which the Mole was not elected.” In which he went down to political defeat and someone else became UN Secretary. There no doubt were a number of su
ch worlds, considering the closeness of the original vote in this world.

  In that other world the absence of the Mole would have no meaning, because he was simply one more defeated political figure, perhaps even in retirement. And-in a position to be thoroughly rested up and fresh. Ready to tackle Minister Freneksy.

  “It’s admirable,” Eric decided. “I think, anyhow.” The Mole had known that sooner or later this battered body would die beyond the possibility of reconstruction except by artiforg means. And what good was a political strategist who couldn’t look ahead to his own death? Without that he would have been merely another Hitler, who didn’t want his country to survive him.

  Once more Eric glanced over the document which Molinari had presented them. It indeed was airtight. Legally the next Molinari absolutely had to be activated.

  And that one, in turn, would see to it that he provided himself with a replacement. Like any good tag-team of wrestlers it could theoretically go on forever.

  Could it?

  All the Molinaris, in all the time-continua, were aging at the same rate. It could only go on for thirty or forty more years. At the most.

  But that would carry Terra through and out of the war.

  And that was all the Mole cared about.

  He was not trying to be immortal, a god. He was simply interested in serving out his term of office. What had happened to Franklin D. Roosevelt in a previous major war was not going to happen to him. Molinari had learned from the mistakes of the past. And had acted accordingly, in typical Piedmontese style. He had found a bizarre and colorfully idiosyncratic solution to his political problem.

  This explained why the UN Secretary’s uniform and homeopape shown to Eric a year hence by Don Festenburg were counterfeit.

  Without this, they might conceivably have been real.

  That alone justified what Molinari had done.

  An hour later Gino Molinari summoned him to his private office.

  Flushed, glowing with good humor, the Mole in a spanking new uniform leaned back in his chair and expansively, at leisure, surveyed Eric. “So the nurts weren’t going to start me up,” he boomed out. Then abruptly he laughed. “I knew you’d put pressure on them, Sweetscent; I had it all worked out. Nothing by accident. You believe me? Or you think there was a loophole, they might have gotten away with it, especially that Festenburg-he’s plenty smart, you know. I admire the hell out of him.” He belched. “Listen to me. Well, so much for Don.”