Part 4 (1/2)
”Yes.”
”And Matt probably understands what they're saying as well as I do now, if not better. He's up and around most of the time. They allow him a good deal of freedom. He's quite good about staying out of rooms he's warned not to enter, not touchimg dangerous things, and so forth.”
”Yes.”
”Oh, and did I tell you they've suspended healing in his face? Until they're sure he can make a fully informed decision on what he wants his new face to look like.”
”Yes, I heard something about that. Lisa, how long are you planning on living in the hospital? Are you really set on learning nursing, or is it just- something to do?” He almost asked, ”Is it just Matt?”
”Oh.” Her face fell slightly. ”Sometimes I don't think I was cut out to be a nurse. But I have no immediate plans to move. It's handy for me to live right in the hospital when I'm still getting therapy for my memory every day.”
”Any success with the treatments?” Derron knew that the doctors now fully accepted that Lisa had simply lost her memory through being caught in the path of the berserker missile. For a while some had considered it possible that she was an emissary or a deserter from the future, made amnesic by descent through time. But on the sentry screens no such reversed lifeline could be found. In fact, no traveler, no device, no message, had ever come from the future to this embattled civilization that called itself Modern.
Possibly the inhabitants of the unknowable time-to-come had good reason of their own to refrain from communication; possibly the future Sirgol was not inhabited by man. Or it might simply be that this time of the berserker war was completely blocked off from the future by paradox loops. It was some comfort, at least, that no berserker machines came attacking from the direction of tomorrow.
”No, the therapy doesn't really help.” Lisa sighed faintly; her memory of her personal life before the missile wave had caught her was still almost completely blank. She put the subject aside with a wave of her hand and went back to talking about what new things Matt had done today.
Derron, not listening, closed his eyes for a moment, savoring the sensation of life he had when he was with Lisa. At this moment he possessed the touch of her hand in his, the feel of gra.s.s and soil under his feet, the warmth of the pseudosuns.h.i.+ne on his face. Next moment it might all be gone- another missile wave could come down through the miles of rock, or the unraveling of King Ay's severed cord of life might propagate faster than expected up through the fabric of history.
He opened his eyes and saw the muraled walls surrounding the buried park, and the improbably alive, singing, and soaring birds. Down here at the level where humans walked, the place was almost thronged, as usual, with strolling couples and solitaries; in places the tough gra.s.s was showing signs of wear, and the gardeners had had to defend it with string fences. All in all, a poor imitation of the murdered real world, but with Lisa beside him it became transformed into something better than it was.
Derron pointed. ”Right there's the tree where I first came to your rescue. Or you came to mine, rather.”
”I rescued you? From what horrible fate?”
”From dying of loneliness in the midst of forty million people. Lisa, I'm trying to tell you that I want you to move out of that hospital dormitory.”
She turned her eyes away, looking down. ”If I did that, where would I live?”
”I'm asking you to live with me, of course. You're not a little lost girl anymore; you're on your own, studying to be a nurse, and I can ask. There are some unused apartments around, and I'll rate one of them if I take a companion. Especially with this promotion they've given me.”
She squeezed his hand, but that was all. She was thoughtfully silent, her eyes on the ground a few paces ahead of them.
”Lisa? What do you say?”
”Just exactly what are you offering me, Derron?”
”Look-yesterday, when you were telling me about your new girlfriend's problems, you seemed to have a very firm grasp of what this male-female business is all about.”
”You want me to live with you temporarily, is-that it?” Her voice was cool and withdrawn.
”Lisa, nothing in our world can be permanent. At the staff meeting just now- Well, I'm not supposed to talk about that. But things don't look good. I want to share with you whatever good things may be left.”
Still silent, she let him lead her on stepping-stones across the park's little stream.
”Lisa, do you want a marriage ceremony? I should have put that first, I suppose, and asked you formally to marry me. The thing is, not many people are going to raise their eyebrows if we do without a ceremony, and if we do without one we'll avoid some delay and red tape. Would you think we were doing wrong if we didn't have a wedding?”
”I... suppose not. What bothers me is the way you talk about everything being temporary. I suppose feelings are included.”
”When everything else is temporary, yes! That doesn't mean I necessarily like it. Bnt how can anyone in our world say what they'll be feeling or thinking a month or a year from now? In a year we'll most likely all...” He let his voice trail off.
She had been searching for words and now at last she found the ones she wanted. ”Derron, at the hospital I've absorbed the att.i.tude that people's lives can be made less temporary, now or anytime. That people should go on trying to build, to accomplish things, even though they may not have long to live.”
”You absorbed this at the hospital, you say?”
”All right, maybe I've always felt that way.”
He had, too, at one time. A year, a year and a half ago. A lifetime ago, with someone else. The image that he could not stop seeing and did not want to stop seeing came back to him again.
Lisa seemed to have her own private image. ”Look at Matt, for instance. Remember how badly hurt he was. Look at what an effort of will he's made to survive and recover-”
”I'm sorry.” Derron interrupted her, looking at the time, finding valid excuse for getting away. ”I've got to run. I'm almost late for the staff meeting.”
The scientists, by some combination of calculation and debate, had reached a consensus.
”It comes down to this,” their newly elected spokesman explained, when the staff meeting had resumed.
”If we're to have any hope of healing the break in Ay's lifeline we must first immobilize the affected part, to minimize damage-something like putting a splint on a broken arm or leg.”
”And just how do you go about splinting a lifeline?” demanded Time Ops.
The scientist gestured wearily. ”Commander, the only way I can suggest is that someone be sent to take Ay's place temporarily. To continue his interrupted voyage to Queensland and there play his part, for a few days at least. The man sent could carry a communicator with him, and be given day-to-day or even hour-to-hour instructions from here, if need be. If the berserkers stood still for it, he might play out the remainder of Ay's life in its essentials, well enough to let us survive.”
”How long do you think any man could play a part like that successfully?” someone broke in.
”I don't know.” The scientists' spokesman smiled faintly. ”Gentlemen, I don't know if a subst.i.tution scheme can be made to work at all. Nothing like it has ever been tried. But I think it will buy us at least a few more days or weeks of present-time in which to think of something else.”
Time Ops thoughtfully rubbed his stubbled face. ”Well, now, subst.i.tution is the only idea we've got to work with at this point. But Ay is about twelve hundred years back. That means that dropping a man from here to take his place is out of the question. Right?”
”Afraid so, sir,” said a biophysicist. ”Mental devolution and serious memory loss set in at about four hundred years.”
Time Ops thought aloud in a tired monotonous voice. ”Does anyone suppose we could get away with using a slave-unit on that kind of job? No, I thought not. They just can't be made convincingly human enough. Then what's left? We must use one of Ay's contemporaries. Find a man who's able to do the job, motivate him -to do it, and then train him.”
Someone suggested, ”Appearance isn't too much of a problem. Ay isn't known in Queensland, except by reputation, when he first arrives there.”
Colonel Lukas, the Psych Officer on Time Ops' staff, cleared his throat and spoke.” ”We ought to be able to get Ay's crew to accept a subst.i.tute, provided they want Ay to be alive, and if we can s.n.a.t.c.h the whole bunch of them up to present-time for a few days' work.”
”We can manage that if we have to,” Time Ops said.
”Good.” Lukas doodled thoughtfully on a pad before him. ”Some tranquilizer and pacifier drugs would be indicated first.... Then we can find out whatever details of the a.s.sa.s.sination we need to know... then a few days' hypnosis. I'm sure we can work something out.”
”Good thinking, Luke.” Time Ops looked around the table. ”Now, gentlemen, before it should slip our minds, let's try to solve the first problem, the big one. Who is our Ay-subst.i.tute going to be?”
Surely, thought Derron, someone besides me must see where one possible answer lies. He didn't want to be the first one to suggest it, because... well, just because. No! h.e.l.lfire and d.a.m.nation, why shouldn't he? He was being paid to think, and he could put forward this thought with the clearest conscience in the world. He cleared his throat, startling men who seemed to have forgotten his presence.
”Correct me if I'm wrong, gentlemen. But don't we have one man available now who might be sent down to Ay's century without losing his wits? I mean the man who comes from the even deeper past himself.”
Harl's duty was painfully clear in his own mind. He was going to have to take the s.h.i.+p on to Queensland, and when he got there he was going to have to stand before King Gorboduc and the princess, look them in the face and tell them what had happened to Ay. Harl was gradually realizing already that his story might not be believed. And what then?
The rest of the crew were spared at least the sudden new weight of responsibility. Now, many hours after the monster's attack, they were still obeying Harl without question. The sun was going down, but Harl had started them rowing again, and he meant to keep them rowing for Queensland right through the night, to hold off the mad demonstration of grief that was sure to come if he let the men fall idle now.