The Cat Who Walks Through Walls

  These people didn’t know page one about the regulation way to run a hospital. Our able-bodied comrades (the ones suffering from nothing but high acceleration) were already on their way, in glorified golf carts, when I was again lifted out and placed in another golf cart (gurney, wheelchair, floating couch). Rabbi Ezra was there in his wheelchair. Hazel was with us and carrying Tree-San and a Sears-labeled package containing Naomi’s costume. The spaceplane had vanished; I had barely had time to tell Laz (Lor?) that Dr. Hubert sent his love. She had sniffed. “If he thinks sweet talk will get him out of the doghouse, he had better think again.” But her nipples crinkled up, so I assume that she was pleased.

  Four of us were left on the roof, we three and one member of the hospital staff, a little dark woman who seemed to combine the best of Mother Eve and Mother Mary without flaunting any of it. Hazel dropped the package on me, handed the bonsai to Reb Ezra, and threw her arms around her. “Tammy!”

  “Arli sool, m’temqa!” The motherly creature kissed Hazel.

  “Reksi, reksi—so very long!”

  They broke from the clinch and Hazel said, “Tammy, this is my beloved, Richard.”

  This got me kissed on the mouth. Tammy put that bundle aside to do it properly. A man kissed by Tammy stays kissed for hours—even if he is wounded, even if she makes it brief.

  “And this is our dear friend the Reverend Rabbi Ezra ben David.”

  He did not get the treatment I got. Tammy curtsied deeply, then kissed his hand. So I showed a clear profit.

  Tammy (Tamara) said, “Inside I must get you both that quickly may we repair Richard. But both each my cherished guests will here be through time not short. Hazel? Such room as you with Jubal shared, nay?”

  “Tammy, that’s a fine idea! ’Cause I’m going to have to be away sometimes. Gentlemen, will you room together while you are patients here?”

  I was about to say, “Yeah, sure, but—” when Reb Ezra said, “There’s some mix-up. Mistress Gwendolyn, please explain to this dear lady that I am not a patient, not a candidate for hospitalization. Perfect health. Not a sniffle, not even a hangnail.”

  Tamara looked surprised and—no, not troubled but deeply concerned. She stepped close to him, gently touched his left stump. “Are not we your legs to back on put?”

  Reb Ezra stopped smiling. “I’m sure you mean well. But I can’t wear prosthetics. Truly.”

  Tamara broke into that other language, speaking to Hazel. She listened, then said, “Father Ezra, Tamara is speaking of real legs. Flesh and blood. They can do it. Three ways they can do it.”

  Reb Ezra took a deep breath, sighed it out, looked at Tamara. “Daughter, if you can put my legs back on…go ahead! Please,” then added something, Hebrew I think.

  BOOK THREE—

  The Light at the End of the Tunnel

  XXI

  “God created woman to tame man.”

  VOLTAIRE 1694-1778

  I woke up slowly, letting my soul fit itself gently back into my body. I kept my eyes closed while I spliced onto my memory and reviewed who I was and where I was and what had happened.

  Oh, yes, I had married Gwen Novak! Most unexpectedly but what a delightful idea! And then we—Hey! That wasn’t yesterday. Yesterday you—

  Boy, yesterday you had a busy day! Started in Luna City, bounced to Grinnell—How? Never mind “How” for the nonce. Accept it. Then you bounced to—What had Gwen called it? Hey, wait!—Gwen’s real name is Hazel. Or is it? Worry about that later. Hazel called it “Third Earth,” Tellus Tertius. Tammy called it something else. Tammy? Oh, sure, “Tamara.” Everybody knows Tamara.

  Tammy would not let them work on my wounded leg while I was awake—How in hell did I pick up that wound? Am I getting clumsy in my old age? Or was it spotting Bill’s face among those fake Shriners? It’s not professional to let any surprise slow you down. If your own grandmother shows up in the scrum, shoot her and move on.

  How did you know they were not Shriners? That’s easy; Shriners are middle-aged and paunchy; these studs were young and tough. Combat ready.

  Yes, but that’s a rationalization, one you just now thought of. So? Nevertheless it’s true. But you didn’t reason it out yesterday. Hell, no, of course not; at the moment of truth you don’t have time to think. You look at a bloke, something about him shouts “Enemy!” and you jump to do unto him before he does unto you. If you use scrum time routing impressions around inside your skull, sorting by type and weighing by logic—you’re dead! Instead, you move.

  Yesterday you didn’t move fast enough.

  But we picked the right partner for a fight, didn’t we?—A quick little coral snake named Hazel. And any scrum we come out of still with a body temperature of thirty-seven can’t be counted an utter defeat.

  Quit trying to kid yourself. You got how many? Two? And she got the rest. And she had to make pick up on you…or you would be stone cold dead this minute.

  Maybe I am. Let’s check. I opened my eyes.

  This room certainly looks like Heaven! But that proves you are not dead, because Heaven is not your destination. Besides, everybody says that when you die, first you go through a long tunnel with a light at the far end, and there your beloved waits for you…and that did not happen to you. No tunnel. No light at the end of the tunnel. And sadly no Hazel.

  So I am not dead and this can’t be Heaven and I don’t think it’s a hospital either. No hospital was ever this beautiful or smelled so good. And where is the regulation racket found in all hospital corridors? All I hear are bird songs and a string trio off somewhere in the distance.

  Hey, there’s Tree-San!

  So Hazel must be close around. Where are you, honey girl? I need help. Find my foot and hand it to me, will you, please? I can’t risk hopping in this gravity; I’m out of practice, and…well, damn it, I need to pee. Something abooraxly!—my back teeth are floating.

  “I see that you are now awake.” It was a gentle voice, back of my right ear. I twisted my head to look just as she came around to where I could see her more easily—a young woman, comely, slender, small of bust, long brown hair. She smiled as I caught her eye. “I’m Minerva. What will you have for breakfast? Hazel told me that waffles would please you. But you can have anything you like.”

  “‘Anything’?” I considered it. “How about a brontosaurus roasted over a slow fire?”

  “Yes, surely. But that will take longer to prepare than waffles,” she answered with perfect seriousness. “Some tidbits while you wait?”

  “Go along with you; quit pulling my leg. Speaking of legs, have you seen my artificial foot? Before I eat breakfast I must visit the refresher…and I must have my cork foot to do that. This gravity, you know.”

  Minerva told me bluntly what to do about it. “This bed has a built-in refresher and you can’t use the usual refresher anyhow; you are under spinal block from the waist down. But our arrangements are efficient, truly. So go ahead. Whatever you need to do.”

  “Uh… I can’t.” (Truly I could not. When they cut off my foot, the hospital corpsmen had a hell of a time with me. Finally they equipped me with catheter and honey tube until I was able to get as far as the jakes on crutches.)

  “You will find that you can. And that it will be all right.”

  “Uh—” (I couldn’t stir either leg, neither the short one nor the long one.) “Mistress Minerva, may I have an ordinary hospital-type bed urinal?”

  She looked troubled. “If you wish. But it will not be useful.” Then her troubled look changed to a thoughtful one. “I will go find one. But it will take me some time. At least ten minutes. Not a moment less. And I am going to seal your door while I am gone so that no one will disturb you.” She added, “Ten minutes,” and headed for a blank wall. It snapped out of her way and she was gone.

  I immediately flipped off the sheet to see what they had done to my one good leg.

  The sheet would not flip.

  So I snuck up on it.

  It was too smart for me
.

  So I tried to outwit it—after all, a sheet can’t be smarter than a man. Can it be?

  Yes, it can.

  Finally I said to myself. Look, chum, we are getting nowhere. Let’s try assuming that Mistress Minerva was being precisely truthful: This is a bed with built-in plumbing, capable of handling the worst a bedfast patient can do. So saying, I worked a couple of ballistic problems in my head—hairy empiricals guaranteed to distract even a man waiting at the guillotine.

  And cut loose with half a liter, sighed, then let go with the other half. No, the bed did not seem to be wet.

  And a feminine voice cooed, “Good baby!”

  I looked hastily around. No vocal cords to go with the voice—“Who said that and where are you?”

  “I’m Teena, Minerva’s sister. I’m no farther away than your elbow…yet I’m half a kilometer away and two hundred meters down. Need anything, just ask me. We stock it or make it or fake it. Miracles we do at once; anything else even sooner. Exception: Virgins are a special order…average lead time, fourteen years. Factory rebuilt virgins, fourteen minutes.”

  “Who in hell wants a virgin? Mistress Teena, do you think it is polite to watch me take a pee?”

  “Youngster, don’t try to tell your grandmother how to steal sheep. One of my duties is to watch everything in all departments of this fun house and catch mistakes before they happen. Two: I am a virgin and can prove it…and I am going to make you sorry you were born male for uttering that disparaging crack about virgins.”

  (Oh, hell!) “Mistress Teena, I did not mean to offend you. I was simply embarrassed, that was all. So I spoke hastily. But I do think micturition and such should be granted privacy.”

  “Not in a hospital, bud. They are significant aspects of the clinical picture, every time.”

  “Uh—”

  “Here comes my sister. If you don’t believe me, you can ask her.”

  A couple of seconds later the wall opened and Mistress Minerva came in, carrying a hospital-bed urinal of the old-fashioned sort—no automatic machinery, no electronic controls. I said, “Thank you. But I no longer need it. As I’m sure your sister told you.”

  “Yes, she did. But surely she didn’t tell you that she had?”

  “No, I deduced it. Is it true that she sits somewhere in the basement and snoops on every patient? Doesn’t she find it boring?”

  “She doesn’t really pay any attention until it’s needed. She has thousands of other things to do, all more interesting—”

  “Far more interesting!” that faceless voice interrupted. “Minnie, he doesn’t like virgins. I let him know that I am one. Confirm it, Sis; I want to rub his nose in it.”

  “Teena, don’t tease him.”

  “Why not? It’s fun to tease men; they wiggle so when you poke them. Though I can’t see what Hazel sees in this one. He’s a sad sack.”

  “Teena! Colonel, did Athene tell you that she is a computer?”

  “Eh? Say that again.”

  “Athene is a computer. She is the supervising computer of this planet; other computers here are just machines, not sentient. Athene runs everything. Just as Mycroft Holmes once ran everything on Luna—I know that Hazel told you about him.” Minerva smiled gently. “So that’s how Teena can claim to be a virgin. Technically she is one, in the sense that a computer can have no experience in carnal copulation—”

  “But I know all about it!”

  “Yes, Sis.—with a male human. On the other hand, when she transfers to a meat-and-bone body and becomes human, in another technical sense she will no longer be virgin because her hymen will have been atrophied in vitro and any vestigial tissue trimmed away before her animal body is kindled. That’s how it was done with me.”

  “And you were out of your mind, Minnie, to let Ishtar sell you that; I’m not going to do it that way. I’ve decided to have the works. A real maidenhead and both ritual and physical defloration. Even a bridal costume and a wedding if we can swing it. Do you think we can sell that to Lazarus?”

  “I doubt it intensely. And you would be making a silly mistake. Unnecessary pain on first copulation could start you out with bad habits in what should always be an utterly happy experience. Sister, sex is the most important reason to become human. Don’t spoil it.”

  “Tammy says it doesn’t hurt all that much.”

  “Why let it hurt at all? Anyhow, you won’t get Lazarus to agree to a formal wedding. He promised you a place in our family; he did not promise you anything else.”

  “Maybe we should volunteer Colonel Zero here. He’s going to owe me plenty of favors by then and Maureen says nobody ever notices the bridegroom anyhow. How about it, soldier boy? Think of the honor of being my bridegroom at a swank June wedding. Careful how you answer.”

  My ears were ringing and I felt a headache coming on. If I just closed my eyes, would I find myself back in my bachelor digs in Golden Rule?

  I tried it, then opened them. “Answer me,” the disembodied voice persisted.

  “Minerva, who repotted my little maple?”

  “I did. Tammy pointed out that it didn’t have room to breathe, much less grow, and asked me to find a bigger pot. I—”

  “I found it.”

  “Teena found it and I repotted it. See how much happier it is? It’s grown more than ten centimeters.”

  I looked at the little tree. And looked again. “How many days have I been in this hospital?”

  Minerva suddenly had no expression at all. The Teena voice said, “You didn’t say how big a brontosaurus you wanted for breakfast. Better make it a little one, huh? The older ones are terribly tough. So everybody says.”

  Ten centimeters—Hazel had said she would see me “in the morning.” Which morning, dear one? Two weeks ago? Or longer? “The older ones aren’t tough if they are hung properly. But I don’t want to wait while the meat ages. Would there be any such delay with waffles?”

  “Oh, no,” agreed Teena’s voice. “Waffles aren’t common here but Maureen knows all about them. She was brought up, she says, only a few kilometers from where you were reared, and at almost the same time, give or take a century or so. So she knows the sort of cooking you are used to. She explained to me all about waffle irons and I experimented until I made one just the way she wanted it. How many waffles can you eat, fatty?”

  “Five hundred and seven.”

  There was a short silence, then Teena said, “Minerva?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But,” I went on, “I’m on a diet, so let it go with three.”

  “I’m not sure I want you as my bridegroom.”

  “In any case you haven’t consulted Hazel. My bride.”

  “No obstacle; Hazel and I are pals. Years and years. She’ll make you do it. If I decide to use you. I’m not certain about you, Dickie boy; you veer.”

  “‘Dickie boy,’ huh? Do you know my Uncle Jock? Jock Campbell?”

  “The Silver Fox. Do I know Uncle Jock! We won’t invite him, Dickie; he would claim jus primae noctis.”

  “Have to invite him. Mistress Teena; he’s my closest relative. All right, I’ll stand up as bridegroom and Uncle Jock will take care of deflowering the bride. Wrap it up.”

  “Minerva?”

  “Colonel Richard, I do not think that Athene should do this. I have known Dr. Jock Campbell for many years, and he has known me. If Athene insists on this silly thing, I do not think she should give herself first to Dr. Campbell. A year or two later, when she knows—” Minerva shrugged. “They are free persons.”

  “Teena can work it out with Hazel and Jock; it wasn’t my idea. When does this crime take place?”

  “Almost at once; Athene’s clone is almost matured. About three of your years.”

  “Oh. I thought we were talking about next week. I’ll stop worrying; the horse might learn to sing.”

  “What horse?”

  “A nightmare. Now about those waffles. Mistress Minerva, will you join me in waffles? I can’t stand
to have you standing there salivating and swallowing and starving while I wallow in waffles.”

  “I have already broken fast today—”

  “Too bad.”

  “—but that was some hours ago and I would like to experience waffles; both Hazel and Maureen speak well of them. Thank you; I accept.”

  “You didn’t invite me!”

  “But, Teena my prospective child bride, if you do as you threaten to, my table will be yours; to invite you to share it would be a tautologically redundant plethora of excess surplus-age, repetitious and almost insulting. Did Maureen say how waffles should be served? With drawn butter and maple syrup and plenty of crisp bacon…accompanied by fruit juice and coffee. The juice should be ice-cold; the rest should be hot.”

  “Three minutes, lover boy.”

  I was about to answer when that insubstantial wall again opened and Rabbi Ezra walked in. Walked in. He was using crutch canes but he was on two legs.

  He grinned at me and waved a crutch cane. “Dr. Ames! Good to see you awake!”

  “Good to see you, Reb Ezra. Mistress Teena, please make that order three of everything.”

  “I already did. And lox and bagels and strawberry jam.”

  It was a jolly meal despite all the questions on my mind. The food was grand and I was hungry; Minerva and Ezra—and Teena—were good company. I was chasing syrup with the last bite of my first waffle before I said, “Reb Ezra, have you seen Hazel this morning? My wife. I had expected her to be here.”

  He seemed to hesitate; Teena answered, “She’ll be here later, Dickie. She can’t hang around waiting for you to wake up; she has other things to do. And other men.”

  “Teena, quit trying to get my goat. Or I won’t marry you even if Hazel and Jock both agree.”

  “Want to bet? You jilt me, you cad, and I’ll run you right off this planet. You won’t get another bite to eat, doors won’t open for you, refreshers will scald you, dogs will bite you. And you will itch.”