Part 7 (1/2)

Even with the hideous antifungal mask, she was very beautiful.

”Viktor,” she said, ”I didn't know you were here. I'm sorry about your mother.”

”But we've got to get your dad to the hospital,” Billy added.

”They've got more important things to do than looking after drunks,” Viktor said contemptuously-and was startled to see the quick flare of anger that twisted Billy Stockbridge's face. But it was his mother who spoke, already by Pal Sorricaine's side, lifting an eyelid with her thumb, feeling his sweating forehead.

”Viktor. Your father isn't just drunk. He's got acute alcohol poisoning. He could die. Help Billy get him to the hospital.”

What Viktor would not have done for his father he could not refuse Marie-Claude. He pulled a blanket off his parents' bed and rolled the old man into it. Billy helped, glowering. The filth was already staining the blanket as Viktor picked Pal Sorricaine up and threw him over his shoulder. The filth didn't matter. It was only one more insult added to the rancor that was already overflowing. ”I'll be back,” he said, and carried his father out the door, Billy Stockbridge trailing glowering behind.

When Viktor got back from getting his father admitted-only to a pallet on the ground, because all the beds were full of the dying-Marie-Claude had thrown open the windows, scrubbed up the worst of the filth, and cleared off the litter of bottles and dirty clothes. She had even made a pot of tea. She poured a cup for Viktor as he sat down.

She seemed pale, silent, drawn, abstracted. But all she said was, ”Is your father going to be all right?”

Viktor shrugged. ”They're treating him, anyway.” Actually, even the doctor who finally came to see them had had no hesitation about admitting Pal Sorricaine, once he had felt his pulse. Lying on the ground and wholly unaware, the snoring man had been washed, bedded, and stuck with IVs to replenish his lost liquids and electrolytes before Viktor left. The doctor said it would be at least forty-eight hours before Pal would be able to go home. (Strange that even yet people said ”forty-eight hours,” as though it were a natural unit of time.) ”Billy wanted to stay with him a while,” Viktor added.

Marie-Claude nodded in that weary, absent way, as though she were thinking about something else entirely-though with the antifungal mask covering most of her face there wasn't much he could tell about what she was thinking, anyway. ”Billy is very fond of your father,” she mentioned.

Viktor gaped at her. ”For G.o.d's sake, why?”

She didn't seem surprised at the question. ”Why shouldn't he be? Pal is a good man, Viktor. You're too hard on him. He's had trouble adjusting, and there's his leg, and then your mother's sickness . . .” She said it all flatly, like a comment on the weather. Her voice was as pallid as what he could see of her face.

There was something wrong with Marie-Claude. For a moment the natural fear flashed though his mind-the sickness?- sickness?-but no, he rea.s.sured himself, it couldn't be that. The sick ones were unmistakable, the gasping struggle for air, the cyanosed complexion. None of that applied to Marie-Claude. Still, Viktor looked at her with concern.

”Are you all right?” he demanded.

She looked at him questioningly and then seemed to shake herself. She poured more tea for him, thoughtfully. ”n.o.body's all right now, are they? But I'll be fine.” Then, without warning. she said. ”Viktor. Why don't you marry Theresa McGann?”

There was a swallow of tea halfway down Viktor's throat. He gagged. ”You talk like my mother,” he got out, strangling.

”Then your mother talks sense to you. I'll speak for her, since she can't anymore. You ought to have a real family, not just leave a puppy here and there. Marry Theresa. Or somebody. Why not?”

”Because,” he said-boldly, bitterly, ”the only woman I want to marry will go to bed with anybody on Newmanhome, except me.”

She looked at him in puzzlement.

Then, for the first time, he saw a crinkling at the corners of the eyes, just visible above the mask. She was almost smiling. She put her hand on his. ”Dear, dear Viktor,” she said with affection. ”Do you have any idea how grand you've been for my morale, all these years?”

He s.n.a.t.c.hed his hand away. ”d.a.m.n you, don't patronize patronize me!” he grated. me!” he grated.

”I don't mean to,” she said apologetically. She studied him thoughtfully for a moment. Then she closed her eyes, as though in resignation. When she opened them again she said, ”Have you finished your tea? Then let's close the windows and lock the door. I'm a lot too old to marry you, Viktor. I'm too old for an affair with you, too, I mean for any long time. But if you really want us to make love-once-well, why not?”

Viktor didn't see Marie-Claude after that, not for a long time. For the whole next day he went around grinning to himself. He was just about the only person in the colony smiling that day. People looked at him with surprise and sometimes with anger. He was reliving every moment and touch of that wonderful copulation. Marie-Claude in bed was what he had been dreaming of since before even p.u.b.erty, and the reality was not in any way a letdown. They had been careful with each other's gauze masks, kissing through them, with all their foul smell and taste, and in every other way they had been wild. She had responded to him with gasped and choked cries, and at the end, when she sobbed and cried out, she had dissolved into shaking tears.

Viktor was startled and worried and did not, just then, know why.

She didn't show up at the ma.s.s funerals when his mother, with forty-two others, was being put under the ground. (Even there Viktor could hardly help an invisible smile now and then, even while he cried.) That was just as well. There was a nasty-and completely unexpected-quarrel at the grave site. It concerned religion, of all things. The Moslems didn't want to have their dead buried with the unbelievers, and once the Moslems made that clear, some of the other sects began muttering, too. It took all of Captain Bu's bellowing to restore order. Then a rancorous emergency town meeting was called that night, people shouting at each other through tears and gauze masks, before it was decided that future burials could be segregated by religion.

It was there that Freddy Stockbridge, coming up to offer a prayer for his mother for him, filled in the missing piece in the puzzle of Marie-Claude. Yes, she had been strangely abstracted that day. Her own husband, that forgotten man, the man who, when Viktor remembered his existence at all, he had thought of with the contemptuous pity of the seducer for the cuckold-that man had himself died only hours before Amelia Sorricaine-Memel.

Viktor had bedded the widow before the man's corpse was cold.

But Marie-Claude was true to her word. She didn't turn to Viktor to take her dead husband's place. She boarded a s.h.i.+p for Archipelago West as soon as one sailed. Months later Viktor heard that she was marrying a molecular biologist bereft at the same time as herself.

When Pal Sorricaine got out of the hospital he was shaky and, beyond the gauze face mask, pale. He confronted his son steadily enough, though. ”I just couldn't handle it, Viktor,” he said.

Viktor turned away from cleaning the house-the smaller children were back in their home again, and he had been the only one to take care of them. He said to his father, just as steadily, ”That's c.r.a.p. You've been a drunk for years. You've just been getting worse, that's all.”

His father flinched. ”That's what I meant, Viktor. Your mother dying was just the last straw. I haven't been able to handle my life for a long time now. Being here-missing a leg-so much to do, and not much that I'm able to do to help. Vik, I just don't feel like I've got a place place here.” here.”

Viktor studied his father. He had never seen him look so-was the right word ”defeated”? No, the word that fit best was pointless.” Pal Sorricaine did not seem to have any point or purpose to his life.

Viktor lifted the lid of the stewpot and sniffed. Dinner could be served when Edwina came back with the littler kids; it was ready now. ”Eat something,” he growled, putting a plate in front of his father. The man accepted instruction obediently, pus.h.i.+ng his mask aside for each spoonful of broth and meat and potatoes. Pal Sorricaine didn't seem to want to prolong the conversation. He simply did as he was told, without comment.

To his son, that was scary. ”But you've got your cla.s.s,” Viktor said abruptly.

Pal shook his head, going on eating. ”There's nothing left for me to teach them, Vik.”

”But your observatory-”

”Viktor,” his father said patiently, ”every one of those kids can run the telescope as well as I can. Billy can run it better. He's been the one who's been commanding the Mayflower Mayflower instruments for months.” He began to look interested for the first time. ”Billy's done a series of observations of Nebo that would make a doctoral dissertation for him back on Earth, Viktor. There are some pretty funny levels of high-energy radiation coming from around there-nothing I would have expected. Nothing I can account for, and, Viktor, I don't even know where to begin to look anymore. But Bill keeps working at it. He's very bright. You'd be interested in that, Vik; I'll ask Bill to show you. He's always eager to oblige. You know, he sort of took care of me when I was, well, under the weather.” instruments for months.” He began to look interested for the first time. ”Billy's done a series of observations of Nebo that would make a doctoral dissertation for him back on Earth, Viktor. There are some pretty funny levels of high-energy radiation coming from around there-nothing I would have expected. Nothing I can account for, and, Viktor, I don't even know where to begin to look anymore. But Bill keeps working at it. He's very bright. You'd be interested in that, Vik; I'll ask Bill to show you. He's always eager to oblige. You know, he sort of took care of me when I was, well, under the weather.”

”Eat your dinner,” Viktor commanded sourly. He didn't want, for a whole complex of reasons, to hear any more about the virtues of Billy Stockbridge.

Because of the epidemic everything was delayed, disorganized, generally screwed up. Viktor's s.h.i.+p had unloaded in record time, but the cargo of machines and chemicals for the return trip was late. The s.h.i.+p's sailing was put off.

The day before it finally sailed Viktor looked up Reesa McGann. She had their son with them, as well as her toddler by Jake Lundy. As a matter of fact, there were twenty-two infants under her care, because she was trying her luck with a day-care job. ”What happened to s.p.a.ce piloting?” he asked.

She didn't even smile. It wasn't much of a joke; she didn't have to say that obviously there weren't going to be any s.p.a.ce-piloting jobs around now because the epidemic had pushed everything back to the edge of bare survival.

Then, without at all planning it, he found himself saying, ”Reesa, my mother told me just before she died that I ought to marry you. So did-someone else.”

”Who else?” she asked curiously. When he didn't answer, she said, ”They're right, of course. You ought to.”

He blinked at her, surprised and amused. ”Do you want me to?”

She thought that over for a moment while she propped a bottle for one of the younger ones under her care. Then she said, ”Yes, no, and maybe. Yes, first: s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g at random and making babies with different people is kind of kid stuff. There's a time to settle down, and both you and I are right about at that time. Then, no: You've been h.o.r.n.y for Marie-Claude Petkin since you were in diapers yourself. There's no point thinking about marrying you until you get her off your mind.”

Viktor flushed, half angry, half laughing. She stopped there. ”You didn't tell me what the maybe was,” he protested.

”Well, isn't that obvious? If you ever get over having the hots for Marie-Claude, then maybe I'll still be around. Give me a call if you do, okay?”

He grinned at her-unwilling to take the discussion seriously, trying to keep it light and jocular. ”I have to be the one who calls? You won't call me?”

”Viktor,” she said earnestly, ”I've been been calling you since we were both school kids. I just keep getting a busy signal.” calling you since we were both school kids. I just keep getting a busy signal.”