Part 6 (1/2)
All entrances and exits to their small domain were walled up-the masonry was rough and temporary-looking, if there was any comfort to be derived from that. The guard was heavy all around.
Food was slid in through a tiny door, and garbage dragged out, and water continued to flow through the Daedalian plumbing. And that was all.
What material to use, to sculpt the thousand channels? It must be soft...
When he had a hundred cunning perforations built through a wing he tested it. Strapped it on and gave a strong, quick push down and it felt as if his arm had for a moment rested on something solid and ready to be climbed.
One clouded night when there were a thousand channels and he had decided the wings were ready, the father mounted into the sky. Ascending awkwardly and breathlessly at first, he soon learned to relax like a good swimmer. When some height had been attained, a long, gliding, coasting rest let the arm muscles recover before more work was necessary. In an hour, in air that was almost calm, he flew the length of the whole cloud-shrouded island, and was not winded or wearied. Then back toward the pinpoints of the House's lamps, which served to guide him home.
When he landed, the wings were warm, almost hot, with heat that had been gathered into their channels out of the air itself, and somehow turned to pus.h.i.+ng force. Daedalus still had not the words or thoughts to make clear, even in his own mind, just how the wings worked. In daylight a strong push down with one completed wing, and you could see a vapor-puff big as a pumpkin appear in the beaten air and fly off rearward, spinning violently. Icarus extending a hand into the puff said he could feel the chill...
Food and water and gold, in small quant.i.ties, they would carry at their belts. In daylight, across the sea to Sicily; a few hours should be enough. And they could turn northward to the mainland, if they flew into difficulty. ”In the morning, son. Now sleep.”
...He had not yet paid the price, but he knew that it would come. Squinting into the hot, rising sun, he absently marked its dull sheen on Icarus' wings, and waited for the breath of wind to help them rise among the gulls.
CALENDARS.
”I have decided to die,” Matthew Pandareus announced to his wife on their first evening together after their long vacation trip to Mars. Actually they had been back on Earth for a week, but Iris had begun an evening cla.s.s in the history of paperweights and they had not had a real chance to talk since their return.
Tonight they had just finished dinner tete-a-tete in their condominium apartment and he had strolled from the dining alcove to look out through the living room's gla.s.s wall at the fantastic complexities of city lights extending below, around and above their middle-cla.s.s, middle-level dwelling.
”Dear, you had a similar idea once before, thirty years ago.” Iris's clinging gown swished faintly about her shapely legs as she followed to stand slightly behind him at the window. ”Here, you forgot your brandy.”
”Thank you. Closer on forty,” he amended, turning to accept the gla.s.s from her hand. She turned away busily again as soon as she had pa.s.sed it on and Pandareus had no very clear look at her face.
Iris switched on the fireplace with a wave of her hand and adjusted the mood of the background music to something a little more capricious. ”Thirty,” she said firmly, coming back to face him. The communication screen chimed then and she was off to answer it. Maintaining his stance in the living room Pandareus heard the short conversation-just some friends calling to welcome them back and ask how their voyage had been. Iris invited them over a week from Tuesday but they were busy that night. They would call again tomorrow or the next day and some date for a get-together would be worked out.
Now she was back in the living room again, wearing an expression he knew well, that of being firmly in the right though without animosity for those who weren't. ”Thirty,” she said firmly. ”It was right after you won the golf tournament.” If it was time to argue, Iris was ready. Even studying her familiar face at close range, he could neither see nor remember which parts of it were synthetic skin and which her own, rejuvenated. There were no actual wrinkles on it anywhere, only the ghost of a line or two at the corners of the eyes. Even under close inspection she could be taken for a youthful twenty-eight. Her face and body were changing no more over the decades than were his golf or bowling score. He and Iris took long vacations from each other sometimes, but stayed married. He had found no one with whom he would rather live.
”It's nearly a hundred years since we were married,” he recalled aloud and tasted his brandy. ”Will you miss me very much?”
”I shall miss you, of course. Our relations.h.i.+p has been-very nearly perfect. But if it will make you happy, Matthew, go ahead and die. What is it? Boredom?”
”Not really.” He indicated with the most minimal inclination of his head, which Iris instantly interpreted correctly, that they might go and seat themselves near the fire. Stretching out his legs there in front of his chair, Pandareus continued: ”I think you know me well enough to believe that I am not trying to appear altruistic when I say that the time has come for me to move on and make room for someone else.”
”Of course, dearest.”
”There are-what?-maybe eleven billion people on the planet now, and I think the number has hardly changed in the last few centuries. Fortunately starvation and disease are no longer problems. But it is a mixed blessing that practically no one dies unintentionally any more-how can new lives be lived if the old will not make way? When was the last time you saw a child? If every-”
”Speaking of children,” Iris interrupted. ”I don't mean to interrupt, but speaking of children, I hope you're not planning to have yourself terminated before the nineteenth.”
”Of what? This month?” Automatically he looked for a calendar but could not see one. ”Why?”
”Janet called.” His previous wife. ”I mean, she left a message while we were on vacation. Things have been so hectic I forgot to tell you. Your five-great grandson is making his bar mitzvah on that date, you're to be sure to attend.”
”Bar mitzvah?” He rehea.r.s.ed in his mind the names and generations comprising the straight unbranching line of his descendants. ”I didn't think Liang was Jewish.”
”Perhaps what Janet meant was his confir-mation. At any rate-”
”-be sure to be there. Yes. Well, I had hoped to get away soon, having decided that it was the right move to make. But Janet would really feel hurt-if I know her. Is there any way we could get together with her, maybe this week or next week, and discuss it face to face? Let's see, when-”
The communications screen chimed. Another set of friends, these just back from their own vacation.
The next day in his office on the upper floor of the duplex apartment he consulted his business calendar as soon as he could find the time. He dis-covered there was no use after all in trying to get in touch with Janet and see her, because even if the nineteenth were clear he had made commit-ments for important business meetings on the twenty-first and twenty-second. The firm in which he was a partner-dealers in antiques and folk art-was a small one and no great wealth hung on his decisions, but still an obligation was an obligation.
He switched his calendar to the following month. Studying the new pattern of appointments and memoranda displayed electronically on the glowing gla.s.s screen he at first found nothing in it that could not in good conscience be entrusted to his heirs and a.s.signs. But wait, there was the antique furniture auction in Minneapolis. Of course, he and Iris had gone to a great deal of trouble to plan their vacation so he would be sure to be back in time for that. The auction would be an ideal chance for him to train one or two of the younger people in the firm as buyers and he supposed he owed it to his partners to carry on that far.
Now, the month after that...of course, he was supposed to be in Europe for the round of trade shows.
Again, the feeling that he would be letting others down if he bowed out. His wife might have a chance to go along. She also wanted to take part of the history study group that she was heading-all adults, of course-to Europe.
The next month, now, was all clear, except for trivia that he could disregard if he put his mind to it. He did put his mind to it. Then with his electronic stylus he wrote. TERMINATION across that month on the calendar screen.
That evening, however, after helping Iris grade papers from her drama group before some friends came over, he paused suddenly with a foodbar halfway to his mouth, staring after his wife who had just vanished into the kitchen to start preparing the drinks and smokes and slices and dip. He had just been struck by the realization that the month he had tentatively chosen for his demise was the month of their hundredth anniversary. He had been deliberately keeping his calendar for that month clear of other major events, never dreaming that he could forget the big one.
Of course, they could have some worthy celebration (was it on the , fifteenth or the sixteenth?) and then he could terminate a few days later-but no. The scene would be very awkward. He could hear the questions now:And what are you and your husband doing to celebrate, my dear? And the good wishes:May the next hundred years be as happy as the first. No, any time that month would definitely be too close.
He would have to ask Iris how she felt abut it. But there was the door and the bridge club was starting to arrive.
The next day Pandareus had his lawyer on the screen-they were locked in a time-consuming squabble with another art dealer over the correct attribution of an early-American painting-and he took the opportunity to discuss the legal aspects of dying.
The lawyer shook his head. ”Haven't time to go into the whole thing right now. But it's not advisable for you to terminate at present. You'd do much better to wait until after the first of the year. The tax structure...” Pandareus had to cut the call short a minute later and hurry out to meet a potential big customer for lunch-so he managed to gain no very clear understanding of the tax structure. But he had become convinced that dying before the first of the year was financially inadvisable.
His first feeling was actually one of relief. This enforced delay would give him a breathing s.p.a.ce in which to plan calmly for an exit that would have some dignity and perhaps even a touch of ceremony about it.
But in his heart he knew that if you let projects slide long enough it was difficult to get back to them.
Tomorrow, he promised himself, he would try to set up a termination date as soon after the first of the year as possible.
When he came down from the office that night-later than he had planned-he found Iris sprawled on the sofa, her shoes off.
She greeted him with a faint welcoming cry. ”Ahh! Come rub my feet. I have had a day. Matthew, the story of which you will hardly be inclined to believe.”
”That conference on endangered virus species?”
”That was yesterday. No, I went shopping this morning and this afternoon I had to go see that place where we were planning to store our boat next winter-remember, you were too busy to go?”
”Oh, yes.” He sat on the sofa, and began to rub a foot, squeezing the arch and instep with an expert touch. ”Join me in a drink?”
”Gladly. And that was only the start. From the boat storage estabishment I had to go-”
The communicator screen chimed. The caller was the computer service company, reminding them that their home terminals were to be dis-connected for a day's maintenance tomorrow.
After dinner-and after Iris had gone wearily to bed-he dragged himself with proud determination up the stairs to his office again. Jaw outthrust, he set himself to decide firmly once and for all-insofar as such decision might be possible for one man aided by computer-the year, month and day upon which his life would end. He dropped into the chair before his desk with a sigh, brushed aside the printouts, acc.u.mulated during dinner, ofAntique Dealer's Bulletin and five other periodicals he never had time to read. He punched for a combined full printout, on microtape, of his business and social calendars for the next twelve months. Next year's vacation, for example, had been arranged that far in advance. He and Iris were planning to go back to Indonesia, where they had not visited for sixty years. He took his tired mind firmly in hand. Forget about seeing Indonesia again.