Robert Charles Wilson - SPIN

"If you don't give me a symptom-free day, you might as well kill me."

"All I have to offer you," I said, "is my professional judgment."

"And what can I expect from your professional judgment?"

"I can help. I think. A little. This time. This time, Jase. But there's not much room to maneuver. You have to face up to that."

"None of us has much room to maneuver. We all have to face up to that."

But he sighed and smiled when I opened the med kit again.

* * * * *

Molly was perched on the sofa when I got home, facing the TV square-on, watching a recently popular movie about elves, or maybe they were angels. The screen was full of fuzzy blue light. She switched it off when I came in. I asked her if anything had happened while I was gone.

"Not much. You got a phone call."

"Oh? Who was it?"

"Jason's sister. What's her name. Diane. The one in Arizona."

"Did she say what she wanted?"

"Just to talk. So we talked a little."

"Uh-huh. What did you talk about?"

Molly half turned, showing me her profile against the dim light from the bedroom. "You."

"Anything in particular?"

"Yeah. I told her to stop calling you because you have a new girlfriend. I told her I'd be handling your calls from now on."

I stared.

Molly bared her teeth in what I registered was meant to be a smile. "Come on, Tyler, learn to take a joke. I told her you were out. Is that all right?"

"You told her I was out?"

"Yes, I told her you were out. I didn't say where. Because you didn't actually tell me."

"Did she say whether it was urgent?"

"Didn't sound urgent. Call her back if you want. Go ahead—I don't care."

But this, too, was a test. "It can wait," I said.

"Good." Her cheeks dimpled. "Because I have other plans."

SACRIFICIAL RITES

Jason, obsessed with E. D. Lawton's pending arrival, had neglected to mention that another guest was also expected at Perihelion: Preston Lomax, the current vice president of the United States and front-runner in the upcoming election.

Security was tight at the gates and there was a helicopter on the pad atop the hub of the Perihelion building. I recognized all these Code Red protocols from a series of visits by President Garland over the last month. The guard at the main entrance, the one who called me "Doc" and whose cholesterol levels I monitored once a month, tipped me off that it was Lomax this time.

I was just past the clinic door (Molly absent, a temp named Lucinda manning reception) when I got a paged message redirecting me to Jason's office in the executive wing. Four security perimeters later I was alone with him. I was afraid he'd ask for more medication. But last night's treatment had put him into a convincing if purely temporary remission. He stood up and came across the room with his tremorless hand extended, showing off: "Want to thank you for this, Ty."

"You're welcome, but I have to say it again—no guarantees."

"Noted. As long as I'm good for the day. E.D.'s due at noon."

"Not to mention the vice president."

"Lomax has been here since seven this morning. The man's an early riser. He spent a couple of hours conferencing with our Martian guest and I'm conducting the goodwill tour shortly. Speaking of which, Wun would like to see you if you have a few minutes free."

"Assuming national affairs aren't keeping him busy." Lomax was the man most likely to win the national vote next week—in a walkover, if the polls were to be trusted. Jase had been cultivating Lomax long before Wun's arrival, and Lomax was fascinated with Wun. "Is your father joining the tour?"

"Only because there's no polite way to keep him out."

"Do you foresee a problem?"

"I foresee many problems."

"Physically, though, you're all right?"

"I feel fine. But you're the doctor. All I need is a couple more hours, Tyler. I assume I'm good for that?"

His pulse was a little elevated—not surprisingly—but his AMS symptoms were effectively suppressed. And if the drugs had left him agitated or confused it didn't show. In fact he seemed almost radiantly calm, locked in some cool, lucid room at the back of his head.

So I went to see Wun Ngo Wen. Wun wasn't in his quarters; he had decamped to the small executive cafeteria, which had been cordoned off and encircled by tall men with coils of wire tucked behind their ears. He looked up when I came past the steam table and waved away the security clones who moved in to intercept me.

I sat down across a glass-topped table from him. He picked at a pallid salmon steak with a cafeteria fork and smiled serenely. I slouched in my chair to match his height. He could have used a booster seat.

But the food agreed with him. He had gained a little weight in his time at Perihelion, I thought. His suit, tailored a couple of months ago, was tight across his belly. He had neglected to button the matching vest. His cheeks were fuller, too, though they were as wrinkled as ever, the dark skin softly gullied.

"I hear you had a visitor," I said.

Wun nodded. "But not for the first time. I met with President Garland in Washington on several occasions and I've met with Vice President Lomax twice. The election is expected to bring him to power, people say."

"Not because he's especially well loved."

"I'm not in a position to judge him as a candidate," Wun said. "But he does ask interesting questions."

The endorsement made me feel a little protective. "I'm sure he's amiable when he wants to be. And he's done a decent job in office. But he spent a lot of his career as the most hated man on Capitol Hill. Party whip for three different administrations. Not much gets past him."

Wun grinned. "Do you think I'm naive, Tyler? Are you afraid Vice President Lomax will take advantage of me?"

"Not naive, exactly—"

"I'm a newcomer, admittedly. The finer political nuances are lost on me. But I'm several years older than Preston Lomax, and I've held public office myself."

"You have?"

"For three years," he said with detectable pride, "I was Agricultural Administrator for Ice Winds Canton."

"Ah."

"The governing body for most of the Kirioloj Delta. It wasn't the Presidency of the United States of America. There are no nuclear weapons at the disposal of the Agricultural Administration. But I did expose a corrupt local official who was falsifying crop reports by weight and selling his margin into the surplus market."

"A rake-off scheme?"

"If that's the term for it."

"So the Five Republics aren't free of corruption?"

Wun blinked, an event that rippled out along the convolute geography of his face. "No, how could they be? And why do so many terrestrials make that assumption? Had I come here from some other Earthly country—France, China, Texas—no one would be startled to hear about bribery or duplicity or theft."

"I guess not. But it's not the same."

"Isn't it? But you work here at Perihelion. You must have met some of the founding generation, as strange as that idea still seems to me—the men and women whose remote descendants we Martians are. Were they such ideal persons that you expect their progeny to be free of sin?"

"No, but—"

"And yet the misconception is almost universal. Even those books you gave me, written before the Spin—"

"You read them?"

"Yes, eagerly. I enjoyed them. Thank you. But even in those novels, the Martians…" He struggled after a thought.

"I guess some of them are a little saintly…"

"Remote," he said. "Wise. Seemingly frail. Actually very powerful. The Old Ones. But to us, Tyler, you're the Old Ones. The elder species, the ancient planet. I would have thought the irony was inescapable."

I pondered that. "Even the H. G. Wells novel—"

"His Martians are barely seen. They're abstractly, indifferently evil. Not wise but clever. But devils and angels are brother and sister, if I understand the folklore correctly."