Algis Budrys - Who?

The man’s voice was troubled. “All right, Edith Thank you. We can’t seem to stop being strangers somehow, can we?”

“What makes you say that — No. You’re right. I’m trying very hard, but I can’t even fool myself. I’ll start the water boiling.” Her footsteps, quick and erratic faded into the kitchen.

The man sighed, sitting by himself in the living room.

“Well, now do you think?” Finchley demanded “Does that sound like Secret Operative X-Eight hatching a plan to blow up Geneva?”

“It sounds like a high school boy,” Rogers answered.

“He’s lived behind walls all his life. They all sound like this. They know enough to split the world open like a rotten orange, and they’ve been allowed to mature to the age of sixteen.”

“We aren’t here to set up new rules for handling scientists. We’re here to find out if this man’s Lucas Martino.”

“And we’ve found out.”

“We’ve found out, maybe, that a clever man can take a few bits of specific information, add what he’s learned about some kinds of people being a great deal alike, talk generalities, and fool a woman who hasn’t seen the original in twenty years.”

“You sound like a man backing into the last ditch with a lost argument.”

“Never mind what I sound like.”

“Just what do you suppose he’s doing this for, if he isn’t Martino?”

“A place to stay. Someone to run errands for him while he stays under cover. A base of operations.”

“Jesus Christ, man, don’t you ever give up?”

“Finch, I’m dealing with a man who’s smarter than I am.”

“Maybe a man with deeper emotions, too.”

“You think so?”

“No. No — sorry, Shawn.”

The woman’s footsteps came back from the kitchen. She seemed to have used the time to gather herself. Her voice was firmer when she spoke once more.

“Lucas, is this your first day in New York?”

“Yes.”

“And the first thing you thought of was to come here. Why?”

“I’m not sure,” the man said, sounding more as if he didn’t want to answer her. “I told you I thought a great deal about us. Perhaps it became an obsession with me. I don’t know. I shouldn’t have done it, I suppose.”

“Why not? I must be the only person you know in New York, by now. You’ve been badly hurt, and you want someone to talk to. Why shouldn’t you have come here?”

“I don’t know.” The man sounded helpless. “They’re going to investigate you now, you know. They’ll scrape through your past to find out where I belong. I hope you won’t feel bad about that — I wouldn’t have done it if I thought they’d find something to hurt you. I thought about it. But that wouldn’t have stopped me from coming. That didn’t seem as important as something else.”

“As what, Lucas?”

“I don’t know.”

“Were you afraid I’d hate you? For what? For the way you look?”

“No! I don’t think that little of you. You haven’t even stared at me, or asked sneaking questions. And I knew you wouldn’t.”

“Then — ” The woman’s voice was gentle, and calm, as though nothing could shake her for long. “Then, did you think I’d hate you because you broke my heart?”

The man didn’t answer.

“I was in love with you,” the woman said. “If you thought I was, you were right. And when nothing ever came of it, you hurt me.”

Down in the car, Rogers grimaced with discomfort. The FBI technician turned his head briefly. “Don’t let this kind of stuff throw you, Mr. Rogers,” he said. “We hear it all the time. It bothered me when I started, too. But after a while you come to realize that people shouldn’t be ashamed to have this kind of thing listened to. It’s honest, isn’t it? It’s what people talk about all over the world. They’re not ashamed when they say it to each other, so you shouldn’t feel funny about listening.”

“All right,” Finchley said, “then suppose we all shut up and listen.”

“That’s O.K., Mr. Finchley,” the technician said. “It’s all going down on tape. We can play it back as often as we want to.” He turned back to his instruments. “Besides, the man hasn’t answered her yet. He’s still thinking it over.”

“I’m sorry, Edith.”

“You’ve already apologized once tonight, Lucas.” The woman’s chair scraped as she stood up. “I don’t want to see you crawling. I don’t want you to feel you have to. I don’t hate you — I never did. I loved you. I had found somebody to come alive to. When I met Sam, I knew how.”

“If you feel that way, Edith, I’m very glad for you.”

Her voice had a rueful smile in it. “I didn’t always feel that way about it. But you can do a great deal of thinking in twenty years.”

“Yes, you can.”

“It’s odd. When you play the past over and over in your head, you can begin to see things in it that you missed when you were living it. You come to realize that there were moments when one word said differently, or one thing done at just the right time, would have changed everything.”

“That’s true.”

“Of course, you have to remind yourself that you might be seeing things that were never there. You might be maneuvering your memories to bring them into line with what you’d want them to be. You can’t be sure you’re not just daydreaming.”

“I suppose so.”

“A memory can be that way. It can become a perfect thing. The people in it become the people you’d like best, and never grow old — never change, never live twenty years away from you that turn them into somebody you can’t recognize. The people in a memory are always just as you want them, and you can always go back to them and start exactly where you stopped, except that now you know where the mistakes were, and what should have been done. No friend is as good as the friend in a memory. No love is quite as wonderful.”

“Yes.”

“The — the water’s boiling in the kitchen. I’ll bring the coffee.”

“All right.”

“You’re still wearing your coat, Lucas.”

“I’ll take it off.”

“I’ll be right back.”

Rogers looked at Finchley. “What do you suppose she’s leading up to?”

Finchley shook his head.

The woman came back from the kitchen. There was a clink of cups. “I remembered not to put any cream or sugar in yours, Lucas.”

The man hesitated. “That’s very good of you, Edith. But — As a matter of fact, I can’t stand it black any more. I’m sorry.”

“For what? For changing? Here — let me take that in the kitchen and do it right.”

“Just a little cream, please, Edith. And two spoons of sugar.”

Finchley asked, “What do we know about Martino’s recent coffee-drinking habits?”

“They can be checked,” Rogers answered.

“We’ll have to be sure and do that.”

The woman brought the man’s coffee. “I hope this is all right, Lucas.”

“It’s very good. I-I hope it doesn’t upset you to watch me drink.”

“Should it? I have no trouble remembering you, Luke.”

They sat quietly for a few moments. Then the woman asked, “Are you feeling better now?”

“Better?”

“You hadn’t relaxed at all. You were as tense as you were that day you first spoke to me. In the zoo.”

“I can’t help it, Edith.”

“I know. You came here hoping for something, but you can’t even put it in words to yourself. You were always that way, Luke.”

“I’ve come to realize that,” the man said with a strained chuckle.

“Does laughing at it help you any, Luke?”

His voice fell again. “I’m not sure.”

“Luke, if you want to go back to where we stopped and begin it again, it’s all right with me.”