Charles Sheffield - Aftermath

Someone else was behind me, moving my head. A woman’s voice sounded close to my ear; low, pleasant, New England. I made a huge but unsuccessful attempt to turn and look in that direction. Another man moved across my field of vision. He was older than the first by fifteen to twenty years, but just as badly dressed. As he peered intently into my eyes, he said, “There’s no pain when you wake up, but sensory systems respond before motor systems.”

Local accent, Baltimore-Washington corridor, for a guess. I didn’t think he was talking to me. I was just a piece of near-dead meat, and his words were addressed to his companions. He was right about the lack of motor control, wrong about the pain. I was on fire from head to toes, and I couldn’t even moan.

I suffered another welcome voyage to nowhere, short or long. When I came back there was less burning in my veins, and a new urgency in West Virginia’s voice. “We’re in trouble, amigos, like Dana says. Question is, what we gonna do? We’ve come too far to give up now.”

Even crumbs are welcome when you are starving. Dana. I had a name.

Baltimore answered, “Only one thing for it. He has to go back in the drawer for a while, and we have to split up.”

“Why, Art?” It was the woman. “Why not all go to the ground floor together, and try to talk our way out of it? We can say we came to look for a friend who’d been put here. We found the gate open — which is true — and we found him dead. Whoever they are, they’d have no reason to think we were lying.”

“No good,” West Virginia said. “We might be able to talk our way clear. But what if Joy boy here gets so he can move while we’re doin’ it, an’ starts rattlin’ his cage? We’d be in deep shit. An’ no matter what happened they’d have old Ollie instead of us.”

“But what else can we do, Seth?”

“Art’s right. We split up. Here’s my suggestion. You an’ Art go do your song an’ dance for whoever’s down there. Before that, you stick me an’ Dr. G. back in his body drawer, both of us together. I’ll take responsibility for keepin’ him quiet — one way or another.” His voice took on a sly and mocking tone. “ ’Less you want to switch, sweetheart, an’ you cuddle up with Doctor De-mento. You ever get cozy with a homicidal maniac?”

I knew two more things with reasonable certainty. One: I could not be six hundred years in the future. All the speech patterns were too little changed. Two: West Virginia Seth was not my first choice as a dinner companion. I would find a way to get rid of him.

Not today, though. I needed a lot of information about my present surroundings before I made any moves. I also had as little control over my own body as a dead pig. The three of them grabbed me. There was a good deal more talk among them, that I was too sick or bewildered to follow. My carcass, attired from the feel of it in the same ragtag assortment of clothing as my captors/saviors, was rolled unceremoniously into a deep drawer. One of the people — presumably Seth — squeezed in next to me. The drawer silently closed.

I lay in darkness for an indefinite period. I think I may have been unconscious again, for after a faint and distant sound of voices and the soft breathing of my companion, I heard nothing at all. My first intimation of returning body control was the sound of a groan — my own.

A hand covered my mouth. At the same time I felt a stab of pain in my chest.

“Feel that?” Seth whispered in the darkness. “I hope you can — for your sake. You want to live, you lie still an’ do what I say. One false move, one squeak, the knife goes through your heart. You hear me?”

I did not point out to him that his own rules presented me with an insoluble problem. If I replied or did not reply, I would be stabbed. Nor, despite increasing evidence of returning muscular control, was it at all clear to me that I could answer. What I could and did do was gasp.

The knife pricked harder. “You are awake. Say something — softly.”

“Muscles.” My throat was full of phlegm, but I hoped he could understand my gargle. “Cramps. Bad.”

“All right. I’ll try to help you through. Keep as quiet as you can, an’ let me know if 1 hafta muffle you.”

I did not ask how. I lay, cold but sweating, as cramps attacked every muscle of my body in turn. After the first two I didn’t need to say a word.

West Virginia Seth felt what was coming and covered my mouth with his scarf until the spasm was over.

After a while, between bouts, I said, “What year is it?”

He didn’t run me through the heart. He said, “What?”

“What year is this?”

“2026. Are you Dr. Oliver Guest?”

“Yes.”

“The telomere treatment pioneer?”

“Yes.”

Another surprise. A more natural next question would have been, “The serial child murderer?” Like me, West Virginia Seth had his own unusual priorities.

That was the end of the conversation for a while. I pursued my own thoughts and I assume that he followed his. Before the cramps had run their course, thirst took over as a worse torment. I tried to sit up. He restrained me with a rough hand on my chest and a terse “Quit that.”

“I don’t care what you do to me,” I said. “I have to drink, or die.”

“You might do both. You oughta be used to dying.” But he wriggled around in some way I could not see, and the body drawer moved out on its runners. “Been a while since I heard anythin’. Let’s see if Art an’ Dana handled ’em.”

I could walk, but barely. The hardest part was the descent from the body drawer. After that I had a strong arm and the stair rail to help me. As we approached the ground floor the unmistakable stench of decomposing human flesh assailed my nostrils. Previous experience, both professional and personal, allowed me to ignore it.

I stumbled at last through the big double doors, released my hold on West Virginia Seth, and fell on my face. If he spoke while I licked and crunched and swallowed mouthfuls of blessed snow, I have no idea what he said.

Finally he reached down and lifted me bodily. He was strong, far stronger than he looked. “I don’t know if you’re overdoin’ it there, Doc,” he said, “but I can’t afford you to get sick. We got enough worries as it is. Come on.”

He helped me walk around to the back of the building and seated me on a concrete block free of snow. He sat down beside me, the knife again prominently displayed. I had a first clear impression of the outside world.

A great square building of gray concrete stood at my back. In front of me, trees with the foliage of late spring stood with their trunks deep in snow. The breeze on my forehead felt summertime hot. Beyond them, a great river or bay sat lazy in the sunlight. I saw waterfowl, thousands after thousands of them, floating placid on the calm surface.

“Might be our dinner there,” said West Virginia Seth. “How you feelin’?”

“I was sentenced to judicial sleep for six hundred years,” I said slowly. “That meant until 2621, and I’d have been dead long before that. I thought I had a deal. I was supposed to be put in abyssal sleep instead.”

“Lucky for you that you weren’t. Otherwise you’d now be real dead dead.”

“What happened?”

“To your deal? Damned if I know. But other stuff happened, a whole shit-pot full.” He went quiet.