tenderness. The anger wasdirected toward the criminals.
"Could I go to her now? Rusche can fill you in on details."
"It's not--oh, all right. Regulations aren't too strict on these levels.She your sister?"
"Wife." He turned to Rusche.
"See you at the lift in about an hour," he said and headed for theadvertising agency where Janith was employed.
* * * * *
"We haven't been informed as to her whereabouts yet, Mr. Duggan," thereceptionist at Duffey's offices said coldly.
Duggan glared down into the carefully pretty face, the solar-lamp tanand the knife-smoothed wrinkles.
"Now see here, Blanche," he said, and spluttered impotently.
"See here yourself, Merle Duggan," the woman spat back sharply. "Afterall! You come running back just because she's hurt. Why didn't you comeback like this a year ago?"
"I was with her a year ago."
"That wasn't you. You didn't have guts enough to rent a super mech andgo back to your old job." The woman laughed. "Janith tried to insult andneedle you into being a man again. And you just crawled."
"That's a lie," Duggan cried. "I begged her to let me go back. Shewouldn't listen."
"That's what you say now. You don't want to remember. I know. I was hereall the time. Many a time Janith has come to the office, crying, andtold me how hopeless it seemed."
"You're--you're inventing all this, Blanche," he accused.
"I wish I were. Remember, Merle. Think. Be honest with yourself."Blanche put her nervous, blue-veined hand on his arm. A detached part ofhis brain noted how bony and brittle her hand was.
"She's loved you all these years, Merle." The tiny hand dug into hisjacket sleeve. "To make you well again she risked losing your love--andshe lost."
Blanche must be all of fifty, perhaps fifty-five, the analytical portionof his mind noted. Old-maidish in many ways, despite her fiveex-husbands; yet so sentimental--
"It's all part of her scheme. Pretend to be the patient, long-sufferingwife and then secretly forbid me to go back to the deep levels again!You don't know!"
The woman's tired eyes sparkled green. Her little fist cracked againsthis chest. She turned half away from him.
"But I do know. I sat up with you many nights, while Janith got a fewhours of rest. You were like a baby, slobbering and whimpering in yoursleep. The days were worse. You were drunk and shouting and weeping. Toyou blindness was the end."
Merle gulped. He could remember nothing of the sort. Only the accidentand awakening in the hospital to darkness.... But there was a strangeblankness, a hiatus in his memories, that ended with his hated job inthe cigar stand. He could not recall his first day there or--
Could Blanche be telling the truth?
"You--spiteful old hag!" he shouted at her, and rushed out of theoffices.
His feet pounded at the yielding softness of the walkway. The hospitalwas less than two blocks distant--no need to take a travel strip--and heneeded the automatic motion of walking to steady his thoughts.
The forgotten months. Four months, or was it five months, ago, he was inthe cigar-and-news stand. That was the day when an old acquaintance fromthe lower levels sold him the chance on the 80th Level's breakthrough.
That night he had begged Janith to let him rent a super mech. And shehad scoffed at his wastefulness. Yet, now that he remembered it again,there had been a wistful note of hope in her voice.
Could she have been trying to fan his faint desire for sight intosomething more powerful and consuming--so he would become again theengineering Duggan he had been?
He had surrendered then, as he did many times afterward. Sullenly, yes,but he had surrendered. Perhaps she knew he was not ready for sight.When he refused to obey her, when he insisted on hiring a supermech--then, perhaps, she would know the cure was complete.
But that was only theory. He remembered her clearly expressed hatred forthe mucking, lower-level life of a rockhound. Always his hatred for hergrew as she spoke of his work....
She had never expressed herself in that way before the accident. She hadgone with him on many exploratory trips into the caverns that the lowerlevels of Appalachia cut across. And she had enjoyed the experience--hewas sure of that.
Remember! Think back. Back before the cigars and papers. Back to thedays and months after the accident. It hurt to think. His temples, hereon the mentrol-hooded sleeping plate, were pounding irregularly....
Huddling in a bed, knees drawn up and head tucked in, trying to gainsomehow the safety that an infant once knew. Janith's voice, soft andunderstanding, and the acid of panic that set his lips to mumblingmeaningless jargon....
Why had Janith not sent him to the medical centers for mental clearingand re-education as was done with all cases of psychoed abnormals? Theanswer was with him. She loved him as he was, Merle Duggan--not as a newpersonality in her husband's body.
Artificial amnesia automatically dissolves all marriage partnerships.She had not wanted that. Instead she had three years of hell....
Striking out at emptiness, his fists contacting soft flesh, and thepained cry, swiftly suppressed, of Janith. His voice, cursing andhigh-pitched, as he fought the straps that now were restraining hissightless body. The bite of a needle and gradual dissolution offeeling....
Memory was coming reluctantly back to Duggan. This was not theself-imagined visionings of an abused helpless man. These memories weretrue. He had fought against all mental therapy and turned from those wholoved him.
Now the hospital entrance was before him. He paused for a moment andthen went inside. The automatic hush of the door shutting out the mutedstreet sounds was all too familiar.
"Mrs. Janith Duggan," he told the crisply white woman at the desk.
"Room 212, second floor."
"Thank you."
* * * * *
He used the steps in preference to the lift. He needed more time tothink--would he ever find enough time?
Undoubtedly, now, Janith's love for him was dead. His desertion of hermust have finished the dissolution of their marriage. It had beencowardly--he should have faced her and declared what he was going to doand what she could do.
These past weeks, working with the rock hogs, had been invaluable. Theyhad restored something of his self-esteem.
The second floor. Pastel bare walls and soft voices. The odors. 208 andopposite, 209. A wheelchair, propelled by a timidly smiling white-hairedwoman. He nodded automatically.
210. What could he say to her? That he was sorry she was hurt and thathe was such a fool? And then back to the super mech hostel and the fiveother cripples who shared the room?
212. The door ajar. A private room. He was glad of that. The headachewas more violent now--there was a bitter taste in his mouth as his supermech entered the room.
She was alone, looking tiny and helpless on the high bed. To him, afterthree years, she was more beautiful than he remembered, even though thepure whiteness of her once-graying hair startled him.
"Janith," he said uncertainly.
She turned her head, curiosity in her expression, and then understandingcame. There was no mistaking the warmth and welcome that came into hereyes. She held out her arms.
"Duggy," she commanded, "come here."
And he knew then, without ever being told, that his revolt and flighthad all been part of the therapy, and Janith had known all the timewhere he had been....
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _Fantastic Universe_ September 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends