Damon Knight - Orbit 15

David followed him to the emergency room and watched his deft hands as he felt Clarence’s body, tested for reflexes, probed confidently along the spinal column. “I’ll operate,” he said, and that same confidence came through with the words. He motioned for S-1 and W-2 to bring Clarence, and left once more.

Sarah had moved back out of the way, and now she slowly turned and stripped off the gloves she had put on in preparing to stitch up the leg wound. Warren watched the two young people cover Clarence, strap him securely, and wheel him out the door. No one spoke. Sarah methodically started to clean up the emergency-room equipment. Sarah finished her tasks and looked uncertainly about for something else to do.

“Will you take Margaret home and put her to bed?” David asked. She looked at him gratefully and nodded. When she was gone, David turned to Warren. “Someone has to see to the bodies, clean them up, prepare for burial.”

“Sure, David,” Warren said in a heavy voice. “I’ll get Avery and Sam. We’ll take care of it. I’ll just go get them now and we’ll take care of it. I’ll . . . David, what have we done?” And his voice that had been too heavy, too dead, became almost shrill. “What are they?”

“What do you mean?”

“When the accident happened, I was down to the mill. Having a bite with Avery. He was just finishing up down there. Section of the floor caved in, you know that old part where we should have put in a new floor last year, or year before. It gave way somehow. And suddenly there they were, the kids, out of nowhere. No one had time to go get them, to yell for them. Nothing, but there they were. They got their own two out of there and up to the hospital like their tails was on fire, David. Out of nowhere.”

Several of the elders were still in the waiting room when David went there. Lucy and Vernon were sitting near the window, staring out at the black night. Since Clarence’s wife had died, he and Lucy had lived together, not as man and wife, but for companionship, because as children they had been as close as brother and sister, and now each needed someone to cling to. Sometimes sister, sometimes mother, sometimes daughter, Lucy had fussed over him, sewed for him, fetched and carried for him, and now, if he died, what would she do? David went to her and took her cold hand. She was very thin, with dark hair that hadn’t started to gray, and deep blue eyes that had twinkled with merriment once, a long, long time ago.

“Go on home, Lucy. I’ll wait, and as soon as there is anything to tell you, I promise I’ll come.”

She continued to stare at him. David turned toward Vernon helplessly. Vernon’s brother had been killed in the accident, but there was nothing to say to him.

“Let her be,” Vernon said. “She has to wait.”

David sat down, still holding Lucy’s hand. After a moment or so she pulled it free gently and clutched it herself until both of her hands were white-knuckled. None of the young people came near the waiting room. David wondered where they were waiting to hear about the condition of their own. Or maybe they didn’t have to wait anywhere, maybe they would just know. He pushed the thought aside angrily, not believing it, not able to be rid of it. A long time later W-1 entered and said to no one in particular, “He’s resting. He’ll sleep until tomorrow afternoon. Go on home now.”

Lucy stood up. “Let me stay with him. In case he needs something, or there’s a change.”

“He won’t be left alone,” W-1 said. He turned toward the door, paused and glanced back, and said to Vernon, “I’m sorry about your brother.” Then he left.

Lucy stood undecided until Vernon took her arm. “I’ll see you home,” he said, and she nodded. David watched them leave together. He turned off the light in the waiting room and walked slowly down the hall, not planning anything, not thinking about going home, or anywhere else. He found himself outside the office that W-1 used, and he knocked softly. W-1 opened the door. He looked tired, David thought, and wasn’t sure that his surprise was warranted. Of course, he should be tired. Three operations. He looked like a young, tired Walt, too keyed up to go to sleep immediately, too fatigued to walk off the tension.

“Can I come in?” David asked hesitantly. W-1 nodded and moved aside, and David entered. He never had been inside this office.

“Clarence will not live,” W-1 said suddenly, and his voice, behind David, because he had not yet moved from the door, was so like Walt’s that David felt a thrill of something that might have been fear, or more likely, he told himself, just surprise again. “I did what I could,” W-1 said. He walked around his desk and sat down.

W-1 sat quietly, with none of the nervous mannerisms that Walt exhibited, none of the finger tapping that was as much a part of Walt’s conversation as his words. No pulling his ears or rubbing his nose. A Walt with something missing, David thought. They all had something missing, a dead area. Now, with fatigue drawing his face, W-1 sat unmoving, waiting patiently for David to begin, much the same way an adult might wait for a hesitant child to initiate a conversation.

“How did your people know about the accident?” David asked. “No one else knew.”

W-1 shrugged. A time-consumer question, he seemed to imply. “We just knew.”

“What are you doing in the lab now?” David asked, and heard a strained note in his voice. Somehow he had been made to feel like an interloper; his question sounded like idle chatter.

“Perfecting the methods,” W-1 said. “The usual thing.”

And something else, David thought, but he didn’t press it. “The equipment should be in excellent shape for another ten years or more,” he said. “And the methods, while probably not the best conceivable, are efficient enough. Why tamper now when the experiment seems to be proving itself?” For a moment he thought he saw a flicker of surprise cross W-1’s face, but it was gone too swiftly and once more the smooth mask revealed nothing.

“Remember when one of your women killed one of us a long time ago, David? Hilda murdered the child of her own likeness. We all shared that death, and we realized that each of you is alone. We’re not like you, David. I think you know it, but now you must accept it.” He stood up. “And we won’t go back to what you have.”

David stood up also, and his legs felt curiously weak. He gripped the edge of the desk. “What exactly do you mean?”

“Sexual reproduction isn’t the only answer. Just because the higher organisms evolved to it doesn’t mean it’s the best. Each time a species has died out, there has been another higher one to replace it.”

“Cloning is one of the worst ways for a higher species,” David said. “It stifles diversity.” The weakness in his legs seemed to be climbing, and he felt his hands start to tremble. He clenched the desk harder.

“That’s assuming diversity is beneficial. Perhaps it isn’t,” W-1 said. “You pay a high price for individuality.”

“There is still the decline and the inevitable slide to extinction. Have you got around that?” David wanted suddenly to end this conversation, to hurry from the sterile office and the smooth unreadable face with the sharp eyes that seemed to know what he was feeling.

“Not yet,” W-1 said slowly. “But we have the fertile members to fall back on until we do.” He moved around his desk and walked toward the door. “I have to check my patients,” he said, and held the door open for David.

“Before I leave,” David said, “will you tell me what is the matter with Walt?”

“Don’t you know?” W-1 shook his head. “I keep forgetting, you don’t tell each other things, do you? He has cancer. Inoperable. It metastasized. He’s dying, David. I thought you knew that.”