Charles Sheffield - Aftermath

Seth pushed himself off the bench. Hot, dark eyes challenged Art and Dana. “See now why I ask you: How much do you want to live? How much risk you willing to take?”

How much do you want to live?

Art lay on his bed at the Treasure Inn, shivered in spite of his warm clothes, and tried to answer the question.

It had been on his mind as they struggled back from the Institute through a whiteout blizzard that reduced visibility to a few yards; on his mind as they cooked and ate rice and beans; on his mind as darkness descended early, and the chances of anyone else reaching the inn faded to zero. On his mind now, in the middle of a long night when he could not sleep and time seemed to have stopped.

How much do you want to live?

The faint creak of the opening door would not have awakened a sleeper. It brought Art to full alert and had him reaching for the gun at his bedside.

“Who’s that?” He was ready to fire into the darkness.

“Dana.” She spoke in a whisper. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t. I can’t sleep. What do you want?”

“Nothing special. I just didn’t want to stay in my room. It’s next to Seth’s, and I could hear him prowling and prowling. I don’t know if he ever sleeps.”

“Everybody sleeps — even Seth. Maybe he feels as wound up as I am. What were you going to do here?”

“Nothing. Feel a bit less nervous, I guess. I was going to stretch out on the floor.”

“No need for that. It’s a double bed.” He felt he had to add, “Don’t worry, you’ll be safe with me.”

He heard a skeptical grunt in the darkness. “Sure. How many times have I heard that line? In another universe, before I got sick, before Supernova Alpha. Come into my bed, you’ll be safe with me.” The mattress dipped to the left under her added weight. “ You can trust me; men have been saying that since I was twelve years old. It’s one of the three big lies. Move over.”

Art slid to the right, at the same time as a groping hand touched his.

“My God. You’re freezing. No wonder you can’t sleep. Here, this will help.”

He felt a rough blanket laid over him, and a warm body moved against his. It was hardly a personal contact — there were layers of clothing between them. But it was oddly soothing.

Soothing. What did it say about your age and condition, when you found the midnight arrival of an attractive woman in your bed soothing?

“He’s not really asking us, you know.” Dana’s voice was muffled against his shoulder.

Art didn’t have to inquire who and what. “You’re right. Seth’s going to do it anyway, no matter what we want. The only question is, do we help?”

“It will be illegal — though I don’t think there’s much law enforcement at the moment. And it will be dangerous. The media didn’t have anything good to say about Oliver Guest, but they agreed on one thing. He is brilliant, and he’s ruthless. We’d be releasing a monster. Could we control him?”

“I don’t know.” Already, Art was feeling warmer and more relaxed. “Maybe we ought to think of it this way: If Seth brings Oliver Guest out of judicial sleep, are his chances of controlling Guest better if we are involved?”

“I think they are, but that’s still not the real issue.” Dana wriggled, the contours of her body fitting more comfortably against Art’s. “I don’t trust Seth — I do trust you, or I wouldn’t be here — but he does have a way of asking the key question. For a chance to go on living, how far are we willing to go?”

“And what’s your answer?”

“What’s yours?”

“You show me yours and I’ll show you mine. I think we need to wait and see.”

“That’s a cop-out.” Dana snuggled closer and put her arm over Art’s chest. “Let’s not debate it tonight.”

“Mm.” With warmth came mental ease, and a desire for sleep. Art, who only a few minutes ago had expected to be awake all night, could feel himself beginning to lose focus, moving into the state where thoughts lose their sharp edges.

How much of human communication was done without words? He and Dana talked of making a decision, but he knew that their decision was already made: they would do whatever they had to do, within (and perhaps beyond) reason. They would seek out Oliver Guest.

And after that?

How much do you want to live?

A lot.

Maybe, in their own ways, he and Dana were no different from Seth Parsigian.

From the secret diary of Oliver Guest.

I have observed a characteristic pattern in those whose ways wander far from socially acceptable behavior. It applies equally to bigamists, confidence tricksters, thieves, and murderers. Thus:

At first, extreme caution is practiced. Every record is deleted, every step is double-checked, no trace of physical evidence is allowed to remain.

With continued success comes a change in attitude. Since I have not been caught, I am smarter than judicial control; therefore, I will not be caught. So runs the false logic. Contempt for law increases. Behavior becomes more and more sloppy. The trail is no longer erased, physical evidence is left behind, the fruits of crime are introduced into the household. At last — often, it is true, after an amazingly long time — a final and fatal error is made; the authorities descend.

Having noticed such behavior patterns I was careful to avoid them. I took nothing from my victims that anyone would ever be able to measure. No physical evidence of my avocation was permitted in my house. I never used the same collection procedure twice, since repetitive actions can lead to the development of a psychological profile.

Even so, I allowed for the possibility that I might one day become a suspect. In such a situation it was then predictable that my property would be searched. I made special provisions to insulate and isolate the subbasement level of my house, but even if that other lab were discovered, the work going on there had no apparent relevance to crime. It would seem to be an independent, if unconventional, research activity.

How, then, was I caught?

Attend, those of you with urges that you are powerless to resist. We are, every one of us, slaves to chance and the compulsions of our own natures.

My would-be nineteenth victim was a beautiful girl, just fourteen, with lustrous dark hair and skin, and startling blue eyes. LaRona lived in a filthy apartment, sharing it with five noisy siblings by different fathers and with a blank-eyed mother whose intelligence barely was able to correlate intercourse with subsequent birth.

I saw LaRona during one of my scouting visits to the poorest districts. I never went twice to the same area, unless of course I spotted a candidate there. After observing LaRona on a dozen separate occasions, twice walking past the open door of the apartment where she lived — empty boxes in the hallway, smells of grease and mildew and human excrement — I knew that I must act. I had in my collection nothing remotely like LaRona, no one with her coloring, her walk, or the lapidary quality of her jeweled eyes. It would be a kindness to remove such a perfect creation from so awful a setting. Foul play would probably never be suspected. Any rational investigator, examining the circumstances of LaRona’s life in the apartment and her disappearance, would conclude that she had wisely run away from the intolerable.

I made my preparations.

Luring LaRona directly away from the apartment complex would be impossible. Mere survival there required wariness, and during my visits I had been careful to adopt clothing that fitted the setting. No one in her right mind would trust such a man with anything. However, the mother was once more pregnant by yet another transient father. And LaRona, the only remotely responsible member of the family, had taken it upon herself to make sure that her mother visited the nearest clinic for periodic examination and remedial medications.