Frederik Pohl - The Cool War

And who would you pay it to? Oil had been the only reason there was for cities in places like A1 Halwani, Abu Dabu and Kuwait. When the reason disappeared’ the cities died. The nomad people became nomads again. The buildings were still there, and the hotels, and the museums and concert halls and hospitals. But there weren’t any jobs, were there? He tried to remember the postal cards he had seen. That didn’t suggest a thriving metropolis. A few tourists to keep the hotels scratchily alive. And, yes, over the years immigrants had come to the Persian Gulf—the kind of kids, like old Gertrude Mengel’s sister, that had once been called “hippies,” political refugees, writers, people who did not hold regular jobs but could subsist almost anywhere that was cheap. A1 Halwani was a little like Paris in the 1920s, and a lot like the Greek islands in the 1960s. Part Greenwich Village. Part Haight-Ashbury. And if they were managing somehow to squeeze out a few dollars by making and selling liquid hydrogen to the more prosperous countries, who would begrudge them that?

By the time he trotted back up the beach it was dark. In the street lights he saw Alys Brant, peering curiously into a car parked near his door. The car turned on its lights and whined away as he approached, and Alys greeted him by handing him a sack of groceries. “Do you like chicken a l’orange, Horny? And you do have a wok, don’t you? Or a big frying pan will do.”

“I thought you didn’t like to cook,” he said.

“I want to earn my keep.” She took the key out of his hand, unlocked the door and preceded him inside. “Just for a little while, you know, Horny. And I’m really awfully grateful to you for putting up with me.”

He really ought to get her out of his life once and for all. But the damage was done. Anyway, he would be off on another mission in a few days. Anyway—anyway, Hake admitted to himself, the idea of letting somebody else cook his dinner again was not unattractive. He postponed conversation and headed for the shower. The hot water felt good. The toilet was only a toilet, with no new confusion to add to his life. And by the time he was dressed again Alys had dinner waiting.

She seated him, flushed and smiling. There were candles on the kitchen table, and a bottle of white wine. “Don’t you want to know what I’ve been doing today, Horny?”

He cut into the chicken, which was in a soupy, sticky sauce. “I guess so.”

“Of course you do. I spent the whole afternoon at a travel agency, looking at South Seas folders. Tahiti! Bora Bora! Don’t they just sound marvelous? How do you like your chicken?”

“It’s very line,” Hake lied gallantly. But at least the stir-fried vegetables were edible. “I thought you were going to your aunt’s.”

“Oh, she’s as much of a drag as Ted and Walter. She’d just tell me I belong with my husbands. I don’t have to go to New Haven to hear that. But at least I’ll be out of your way before you go to Cairo.”

Hake dropped his fork. “How the hell do you know I’m going to Cairo?”

“The tickets were in your pocket when I hung up your coat, dear. Is that all you’re going to eat? I didn’t make any dessert, but we could just have some more wine…”

Hake said tightly, “Those tickets belong to a friend of mine. Old Bill Penn. We were, ah, in seminary together.”

“The passport was there too, dear, and it had your picture on it.” She smiled forgivingly.

“I don’t want to discuss it,” he said. He doggedly bent to his food.

They ate quickly, and after Alys cleared the plates away she stood behind him, her fingers on his neck muscles. “Poor old Horny,” she said, “all tensed up. You’re like iron.”

It was true enough. He could feel the strain in the shoulders and arms, across the chest, even in the abdomen. All the muscles he had painfully built up since the days in the wheelchair were now turned against him. “I could make all that go away,” she said softly.

“I’m not in the mood.”

“Silly! I didn’t mean sex—although that’s always good, too. And I’m just not strong enough to massage you when you’re like this.” She was kneading his shoulders very agreeably, but now she stopped, just resting her hands on him. “No, we’ll just relax you, Horny. We’re going to relax every muscle of your body. You’re going to be all relaxed, and we’ll start with your feet. You can feel your toes relaxing now, and—”

He sat bolt upright. “What are you doing?”

“I’m just relaxing you, Horny,” she said sweetly. “I learned it in college. It’s not really hypnotism, just a kind of suggestion. Do you feel your toes relaxed? And your soles of your feet, they’re getting all comfortable and relaxed too, and your ankles—”

“I don’t watit to be hypnotized!”

She let go of him and sat down again at the table. “All right, dear,” she said. “Let’s try something else. Maybe you should just let it all out. Tell me what’s getting you all up tight.”

Hake swallowed the rest of his glass, reached for the bottle and then checked his hand. “I don’t want any more wine. I want some coffee.”

“It’ll just get you more tensed up, Horny.”

“I need to be tensed up! And you’re leaving here toni— tomorrow morning at the latest,” he added.

“Whatever you say, of course, dear,” she said, heating water for his coffee. “Well, if this is to be our last night together, let’s make it pleasant, shall we? Do you want to look at my travel folders?”

“Not a bit,” he said.

“No, somebody else’s trip is never very interesting, is it?” She poured coffee and brought it to him. Determined to make conversation, she said, “Is Art coming over tonight?”

“No.”

“Oh. He’s good company for you, Horny. You really should have more friends.” When he didn’t respond to that, she tried again. “Do you believe in teleportation, Horny?”

“Oh, God. I get enough of that from Jessie.”

“Well, it’s just funny. I keep seeing this same man all over. He was outside this morning, and he was sitting on a bench on the boardwalk when I came back from the grocery store, and then he was in a car right outside the house while I was waiting for you. Now, he really couldn’t have done that, Horny. There just wasn’t time for him to get from one place to another.”

“You weren’t watching, probably. No reason you should be.”

“Yes, I was. I can even tell you what he looked like. Some kind of Indian, or maybe Pakistani. Young. Rather good-looking, in a way—”

Hake put his coffee down. “Did one of them have a scar on his face?” “Why—maybe. I didn’t look that closely but, yes, I think he did. What’s the matter?”

“Just stay there,” said Horny, standing up. “I want to take a look outside.”

But there was no sign of either of the Reddi twins anywhere outside the parsonage, front or back. Hake stood quietly in the darkness of the porch for a long time, watching everything that moved on the avenue. Cars, some high-school kids, a couple of elderly people tottering toward their senior-citizens’ rooming houses. Nothing that looked like a conspirator.

When he came back into the house Alys was standing in his private sitting room, looking puzzled. “Horny! Do you mind telling me what is going on?”

“Sit down, Alys. I mind. But I’m going to do it anyway.”

He went into his bathroom and turned on the shower, closing the door behind him. Back in the sitting room, he took a seat facing her. “You have to do one of two things right now, Alys. You have to promise me that you’ll keep your mouth shut about everything I’m going to say. Or you have to leave here this minute.”